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SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

DAYS OF THE PAST 

A MEDLEY OF MEMORIES 



The Speaker.—"" The Scotch chapters are fascinat- 
ing ; . . . I could read his recollections of stage coaches 
with pleasure for a week on end." 

The Spectator. — "This is one of the most delight- 
ful books of the ' reminiscences ' order that have been 
published for a long time. . . . Mr. Shand's pen 
portraits are admirable ; but even these are not the best 
of the contents of a most delightful book." 

Pall Mall Gazette. — " He has just the art which 
belongs to a good talker — that of recalling past images 
from his memory and making them vivid to others for a 
moment by force of contact and sympathy." 



LONDON 

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & COMPANY, Ltd. 

lo Orange Street, Leicester Square, W.C. 



SOLDIERS 
OF FORTUNE 

IN CAMP e# COURT 



BY 



ALEXANDER INNES SHAND 



AUTHOR OF 



LIFE OF GENERAL SIR E. B. HAMLEY," "LIFE OF GENERAL JOHN JACOB, 
"WELLINGTON'S LIEUTENANTS," ETC. ETC. 



NEW YORK 

E. R BUTTON AND COMPANY 

1907 



> 






Printed by 

Ballantyne, Hanson 6* Co. 

Edinburgh 



INTRODUCTORY 

The sword has always been the resource of the adventurous 
or impecunious, and the roll of celebrated soldiers of fortune 
is so long that the choice may be much a matter of fancy 
or predilection. But there were epochs when the trade was 
exceptionally flourishing, there were times when men were 
typical or when circumstances forced them to the front, 
as there were illustrious careers sensationally dramatic. 
So there is justification for a selection not altogether arbi- 
trary. One naturally begins with the mediaeval Condottieri 
and as naturally ends with the Indian Adventurers, their 
modern representatives. The war which for thirty years 
desolated Europe saw the developments of a science then 
in its infancy, with a revolution in the methods of cam- 
paigning. Our countrymen, and especially the Scots, had 
a special interest in that war from the numbers who flocked 
to the standards of the Lion of the North, the CathoHc 
League, or the Empire. Of the many Scottish soldiers of 
fortune. Marshal Keith of the next century was by far the 
greatest. All are familiar with him as one of Frederick's 
most trusted heutenants, but less is known of his concern 
in the Jacobite intrigues, and as little of the vicissitudes 
of his life in Russian camps and courts, where, after rising 
to the highest rank, his Scottish caution saved him from 
the scaffold or Siberia. Eugene, born with the very genius 



vi INTRODUCTORY 

of war, was rejected by the country of his adoption in an 
evil hour for France. Soldier and statesman, diplomatist 
and man of letters, from the Meuse to the Danube, from 
the Alps to the Apennines, he commanded under greater 
difficulties and in a greater diversity of campaigning than 
his friend and colleague Marlborough, and the career of the 
Edler Ritter of the camp songs was a romance from be- 
ginning to end. Romantic as it was, it was surpassed by 
that of Maurice of Saxe, born, like Eugene, almost on the 
steps of a throne, and scarcely embarrassed by the bar 
sinister. Distinguished by supreme talents and degraded 
by his follies, no ambitious hero ever missed more mag- 
nificent opportunities, when a choice of marriages might 
have made him Emperor of all the Russias. He had to 
console himself with the baton of a Marshal of France, 
where he died with the reputation of the first soldier of 
the age, crowned with laurels and overwhelmed with the 
honours ordinarily paid to royalty alone. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. THE CONDOTTIERI x 



II. SIR JAMES TURNER 33 

III. SIR JOHN HEPBURN AND COLONEL ROBERT 

MUNRO 58 

IV. COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN .... 96 
V. PRINCE EUGENE 105 

VI. MARSHAL KEITH 155 

VII. MARSHAL SAXE 209 

VIII. INDIAN ADVENTURERS ... . . 246 



SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 



THE CONDOTTIERI 

Arms and the Church were the professions of the Middle 
Ages. The sprinkling of saints found their vocation in 
the cloister : men of birth and connection sought luxurious 
living in episcopal sees and abbeys, richly endowed by 
piety or superstition and bequests wrung from sinners in 
the terrors of the death-bed. Sluggish or tranquilly in- 
clined spirits swelled the ranks of the secular and regular 
clergy. Not unfrequently the professions were confounded. 
Unfrocked monks became the truculent leaders of robber 
bands, as nuns, forgetful of their solemn vows, discarded 
the veil and followed the camp. Alexander de Bourbon, 
a boy canon of the noblest race, became chief of a swarm 
of the terrible Ecorcheurs. For war was the profitable and 
popular trade, a business for which every able-bodied man 
was adapted. Nor was there ever any lack of occupation. 
Kings and potentates were always quarrelling or patch- 
ing up some temporary peace. The formidable feudatories, 
who recognised a shadowy suzerainty when it served their 
purposes, were continually breaking out in rebellion and 
forming leagues against the Crown. Monarchs who could 



2 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

never rely on feudal support enlisted bodies of foreign 
mercenaries, who paid themselves for the most part by 
pillage. When disbanded on a truce, they sought service 
elsewhere, or fought for their own hands like the Smith of 
the Wynd, and pillaged on their own account. The Peace 
of Bretigny was a notable case in point : it sent hordes of 
savage marauders over the length and breadth of the 
wasted South, called by different names, at different times, 
and in different languages. Condottieri, Companies, Tard- 
venus, Ecorcheurs, and Tondeurs who flayed and clipped, 
were the pestilent scourges of France, Piedmont, and 
Italy. The wings of the Death-Angel were for ever beat- 
ing the air, for plague, pestilence, and famine were follow- 
ing in their track. As the seat of the wars was shifted, 
as when France was swept clean and utterly impoverished, 
they crossed the Alps or passed by the seaboard into the 
fertile plains of Italy. Destructive as locusts, they rode 
through the orange groves of Provence, and the cliffs on 
the Corniche rung to the hoofs of the war-steeds of the 
mailed squadrons. 

France was for centuries at the point of exhaustion, 
though then, as now, it showed marvellous recuperative 
power. Italy, with wealth apparently inexhaustible, be- 
came the grand magnet of attraction. There were all the 
favourable conditions of perpetual strife, and it is amazing 
how it continued to pay its way and tempt the Free Com- 
panies, either by hiring them or raising itself from their ruth- 
less exertions. The Pope, who should have been the Prince 
of Peace, was continually in the hottest of hot water, the 
centre of intrigue and the soul of some league of defence 
or aggression. The land was split up into petty princi- 



THE CONDOTTIERI 3 

palities or more or less flourishing republics, and from the 
Alps to the Adriatic it was divided against itself. Scarcely 
a city but had its embittered factions, alternately pro- 
scribed, exiled, and recalled, or the citizens were in revolt 
against the aristocracy, when all were having recourse to 
the inevitable mercenary, who dictated his terms and 
rigorously exacted them. 

It was towards the middle of the thirteenth century 
that the Condottieri began to organise themselves. Their 
precursor was a famous or infamous soldier of fortune, 
who can scarcely be strictly classed among their leaders. 
Walter de Brienne, titular Duke of Athens, had centred 
energies and ambitions on the mastership of Florence. 
His first appearance on the scene was as lieutenant of the 
Duke of Calabria, the son of the King of Naples. Born 
in Greece, he was descended from the high-born Crusaders 
who had carved themselves out principalities in the East. 
Penniless as his namesake, who had headed the unfortunate 
rabble of the First Crusade, he was the banished heir of a 
father who had lost the duchy of Athens to the Catalonians. 
Neither in looks nor character had he anything to recom- 
mend him. He was slight of frame and repulsive in 
features, but to more than Italian craft he united in- 
domitable courage : he had no ordinary talent for war, 
and grasping avarice stimulated daring ambition. Scruples 
he had none, and to avarice and ambition he sacrificed 
his allies as lightly as his enemies. His second appearance 
on the stage of history was in 1340, when the Florentines 
and Pisans were at deadly feud. By dash, daring, and 
intrigue he undermined and superseded Malatesta, a veteran 
leader, come of a fighting^family, who was then in command 



4 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

of the Florentine army. The Florentines thought they 
had found a man at last, and made him Chief Justiciary 
and Captain of the people. Like Tarquin with the poppies, 
he abused the double offices to strike off the noblest heads, 
and the reign of terror recommended him to the populace 
rather than otherwise. He secured the Lordship at which 
he had aimed, though Florence had never before conferred 
it on a foreigner, and, had he exercised his authority with 
moderation, might have sat securely in his seat. But 
exactions, atrocities, and unbridled libertinage hatched a 
succession of formidable conspiracies, making the armed 
populace ready for an hneute. The Podesta was blockaded 
in his palace, which he held with 400 Burgundian soldiers, 
till he came to terms with the town. He was suffered to 
go free, taking his treasure with him, characteristically 
robbing of their pay the gallant warriors who had stood 
so staunchly by his cause. But his brief tyranny had 
drained Florence of her accumulated wealth, and his fall 
had cost her all her recent conquests. 

The result was the rise of the roving companies. To 
him succeeded Werner — Italianised into Guarinci — a 
German adventurer. The Pisans, relieved of their fear 
of Florence, had disbanded the German lances who had 
been their salvation. Guarinci conceived the brilliant 
idea of keeping them together as an independent force of 
brigands. He assured them the regular pay he pledged 
himself to provide. It was to be raised by terrorising and 
levying contributions. The divisions of petty princes and 
hostile republics were his opportunities. In audacious 
blasphemy he displayed on his breast a placard, declaring 
him the enemy of God, of pity, and of mercy ; and as to 



THE CONDOTTIERI 5 

that he kept his promises honourably. He began with 
Sienna, a comparatively powerful state, and from Sienna 
he accepted a comparatively moderate ransom, to serve 
as an advertisement and warning. Weaker principalities 
succumbed at the first summons. He ravaged Perugia, 
Romagna, and the Patrimony of St. Peter. Princes and 
nobles paid him off to attack their feudal enemies, though 
only gaining some short reprieve till he turned his arms 
against themselves. 

In 1347 Guarinci was so strong that he led Queen Jane 
of Naples back in triumph to her rebellious capital. Taken 
prisoner by the changing fortunes of the war, he passed 
into the service of the King of Hungary. He lost nothing 
by changing sides, for Louis of Tarento had withdrawn in 
despair, and his armies had free license to pillage every- 
where. The papal legate had bought the Company off, 
paying a heavy ransom for a brief reprieve. Guarinci's 
mercenaries clamoured for a division of the spoil. As Sis- 
mondi says, by the torture of prisoners they had brought 
almost all hidden treasures to light. After the waste of 
their merciless war they divided a great sum. Having 
stripped the unhappy Neapolitans to the skin, the duke 
marched for Northern Italy. But, characteristically, his 
brigands, gorged with spoil, broke up and dispersed to 
squander it, and Guarinci, satiated himself, with a follow- 
ing reduced to a few hundred horse, seems to have re- 
crossed the Alps and gone into retreat and obscurity. 

The scattered forces of the Company, impoverished by 
debauch and impotent for harm, were not left long without 
a leader. Guarinci was succeeded by Walter de Montreal, 
of a more chivalrous spirit, but as celebrated for his cruelty 



6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

as his courage. De Montreal, known far and near to the 
Itahans as the terrible Fra Moriale, was a knight of Provence 
who wore the cross of St. John of Jerusalem. The Hospi- 
taller was as little scrupulous as his predecessor. But he 
had far-reaching ambition, with something of the craft of 
a Machiavelli, and he dreamed of shaping himself out such 
a kingdom as the equally formidable Hawkwood himself 
declined. Hawkwood fought for lands and riches : De 
Montreal only valued wealth as the stepping-stone to high 
place and power. In his methods he anticipated the 
Constable de Bourbon and Wallenstein. He had made 
himself a name in the wars of Naples, and had brought the 
soldiery under his orders into some kind of discipline, on 
the understanding that out of the ranks they might indulge 
in every sort of license. He sent out a summons that 
resounded beyond the Alps, generous in promises of pay 
and pillage. Very soon he had gathered a following so 
formidable that no strength of the North dared to resist 
him. He raided the Marches and the Romagna : he made 
the futile leagues formed against him pay heavy ransom 
for their audacity : now he laid a wealthy republic under 
contribution, and again he sacked a flourishing city which 
had hesitated to come to terms. At one time he had 
7000 men-at-arms with him, and his light infantry were 
a body of elite. There was a crowd of camp followers 
who carried weapons, with traders, and troops of courte- 
sans ; it was said that in all they numbered 20,000 souls ; 
and all these had to be indulged in license and encouraged 
to pillage for the camp. Malatesta, of the Malatesti of 
Rimini, another leader of Free Companies, had once beaten 
and humiliated him, but now Malatesta was compelled to 



THE CONDOTTIERI 7 

succumb. In vain he sought alhes or begged for subsidies : 
neither prince nor republic dared come to his assistance, 
and what was mainly an Italian army melted away. The 
deserters poured over to the camp of De Montreal, noble 
adventurers flocked to him from France and Germany, and 
the Grand Company, become absolutely irresistible, hung 
like a thunder-cloud over Rome, which had temporarily 
regained its liberties under Rienzi. 

Then De Montreal's subtlety failed him, and his ambition 
overreached itself. He had gone to Rome incognito and 
as a conspirator, to pave the way for the advent of his 
Company. He counted without the Tribune, or rather he 
underrated the determination and the patriotic disin- 
terestedness of that remarkable man. He trusted, besides, 
in the protection of his brothers, who had sold themselves 
and their mercenaries to Rienzi. Rienzi was informed of 
the presence of De Montreal ; leaving the German men- 
at-arms at Palestrina, he hastened back to the capital, 
seized the chief of the Company at a midnight meeting, 
and refused to let him purchase his life on any terms. 
De Montreal's head fell on the scaffold, and it needed but 
little of a prophetic spirit, when he predicted a similar fate 
for the Tribune, whose authority rested on the favour of 
the fickle Roman mob. 

With the death of De Montreal vanished his political 
ambitions. The Grand Company remained, but solely as 
an association of brigands, and the republics and petty 
tyrants of Italy were relieved from the fear of subjugation 
under the military dictatorship of a foreign Podesta. De 
Montreal's lieutenant, Count Lando, succeeded to the com- 
mand, put himself up to auction, and was promptly hired 



8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

by Venice in its league against the Visconti. Charged 
with the ravage of the state of Vianna, it was preparing to 
invade Naples, when for once it had a generous impulse, 
and undertook to right a wrong, and that was done in 
its usual thorough-going fashion. The bloody romance of 
Ravenna is a notable chapter in its history, A noble of 
the country had offered violence to a beautiful German 
countess going on pilgrimage to Rome. Her brothers 
carried the news to the camp of the freebooters, whose 
patriotism was fired by the outrage on their country- 
woman. Ravenna answered for the crime of a petty 
baron, and was desolated by fire and sword. That busi- 
ness being profitably settled, they swept round the boot 
of Italy by Tarento, coming north again to the very gates 
of Naples. Everything and everybody were so helplessly 
at their mercy that the captains laid aside their armour, 
and went into quarters in the Neapolitan chateaux, varying 
less innocent recreations with the pleasures of the chase. 
Northern Italy had had a brief reprieve, and now, when 
money and supplies were running short, they turned back 
to it, tardily to fulfil their engagements against the 
Visconti. The army of Milan was strong as their own, 
but then occurred one of the incidents which made the 
freebooters almost irresistible. Wolf would not worry 
wolf, and the Visconti's Germans deserted to the opposite 
camp. To all seeming more masterful than before, they 
were nevertheless on the brink of a catastrophe. A mere 
handful of bold mountaineers accomplished, for a time, 
what martial republics like Florence and Venice had been 
unable to effect. The Company demanded free passage 
from the Florentines, from Lombardy to Perugia. The 



THE CONDOTTIERI 9 

Florentines stipulated that they should avoid the plains, 
and take a circuitous route through the passes of the 
Apennines. The Company agreed, exacting hostages for 
its safety, and selecting the most illustrious citizens 
of Florence. Had it been able to control its marauding 
propensities, the bargain might have been fairly fulfilled. 
But the mountain villages were sacked and the women 
violated as usual. The peasants, a half-savage race, and 
strong in the consciousness of their mountain strongholds, 
planned such a revenge as overtook the French in their 
invasion of Free Tyrol. The circumstances were almost 
identical. Lando led his army into a gorge in three divisions, 
placing the hostages in the advance. Fortunately for him, 
it passed safely, for the saving of the envoys was his 
partial salvation. It was very different with the centre 
of his battle. Where frowning cliffs overhung the abyss, 
the march was stayed by some eighty peasants. A weaker 
force might have held the narrow passage. At a signal 
like that of the Tyrolese — " Cut all loose " — rocks were 
hailed down on the Company, hustled together by the panic- 
stricken files — a helpless mob. Lando's lieutenant was 
crushed with his charger. The leader himself was wounded 
and taken, though released, and for once a captain of 
Condottieri was put to ransom. The hostages, trembling 
for themselves, treated with De Cavalette, who had escaped 
with the vanguard, and the wrecks of the Grand Company 
were secured, by the orders sent by their prisoners to the 
troops of the Signoria. 

Had it held no hostages, it must have been exterminated. 
But with a space of breathing-time, it was soon as strong 
as ever. German mercenaries all over Italy, burning with 



lo SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

desire for revenge, flocked to the standard of Lando, who 
had recovered from his wounds, and the Pope, preaching 
a crusade against the spoilers of his dominions, did him 
the honour of solemnly excommunicating him. The papal 
thunders fell harmless, and Lando went on pillaging as 
before, the Pope being the chief sufferer. The upshot was, 
that the Cardinal Albornoz condescended to a formal 
treaty with the marauders, to the disgust of his Floren- 
tine allies, for whom he stipulated without any warrant. 
Florence single-handed made a gallant stand, when the 
petty tyrants of many a little town rallied for once to the 
aid of a free republic. The Florentine army was led by 
Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, who subsequently sold 
them and played them false, as was the fashion of the 
times. 

After marching and counter-marching in a blood- 
less campaign, there was a dramatic episode, character- 
istic of the period. One day an envoy of the Company 
arrived in the Florentine camp, to the blare of trumpets 
and the waving of flags. He threw down a branch of 
thorn and a blood-stained glove, with a letter to the 
Florentine general, challenging him to the ordeal of battle. 
Malatesta took the matter as a joke : laughing, he rode 
out to pick up the glove, declaring his acceptance, and 
dismissing the herald with a generous largesse. Naturally 
nothing came of it ; Malatesta could not be forced to a 
pitched battle. Operations dragged as before, but the 
upshot was eventful. For once the Company was cowed 
by the firmness of the resistance and by the general revolt 
against their ruthless exactions. Many of them dispersed, 
and Lando with the rest withdrew to engage themselves 



THE CONDOTTIERl ii 

to the Marquis of Montserrat, and to abandon him soon 
after for the pay of the Visconti. 

Italy breathed more freely when the Company was gone, 
but the reprieve was short. Distracted France had suffered 
even worse things. In the eternal wars between English 
and French, the whole country, but especially the South, 
had been given over to the brigand adventurers. The 
most famous of them, such as Calverley and Gournay, were 
in high honour at the martial court of the Black Prince. 
In Guienne, Auvergne, and Languedoc, each petty noble 
changed sides as suited him. Bastards of great houses 
and younger sons assembled bands of lawless ruffians, and 
strengthened themselves in one of the almost impregnable 
rock-fortresses, whence they raided and ravaged at 
their pleasure. But this game had become hardly worth 
the candle. The means of debauchery failed them, for 
the country had been swept clean : the peasants, starving 
and desperate, rose in a jacquerie, retaliating on detached 
parties with frightful atrocities. There was even a more 
terrible enemy in the plague, which had followed in the 
train of the famine. The regularly organised Companies 
(and there were three of them) decided to shift their quarters 
eastward to Provence, still comparatively unscathed, and 
to Avignon, where lingering superstition had still secured 
relative immunity for the wealthy papal court. And Pro- 
vence and the papal enclave were on the road to Italy. 

The most formidable of these three Companies was the 
White, composed almost entirely of English. It was the 
first to number its strength by lances, which meant a 
mounted cavalier with two attendants. In reality, for the 
most part, even the lances fought on foot, and merely used 



12 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

their horses to carry them with their heavy armour. They 
wore weighty coats of mail, with arm and thigh pieces, 
and two of them handled each ponderous lance. When 
they fought on horseback and went down in a melee, there 
was small chance of their regaining their feet. But serried 
in their close files, they were an impenetrable phalanx. 
Hardened to cold, they seldom sheltered in winter quarters. 
They had a habit of making forced nocturnal marches, 
fruitful of terrible surprises. But as it was their business 
to get their gains in the cheapest market, they never wasted 
lives. As they had none of the newly invented cannon, 
they seldom attacked a strong fortress or a well-walled 
town. Indeed, the terror of them was generally enough 
to bring the place they threatened to a composition. 

Sir John Hawkwood was by far the most famous of 
their captains. He was not with them when they crossed 
the Cenis after their failure to capture Marseilles, for he 
had fought at Brignais under Jacques de Bourbon, but 
he must have rejoined them shortly afterwards. The son 
of an Essex tanner, he had taken early to arms, and 
served with distinction in Edward's French wars. The 
date of his birth is uncertain, but he must have been a 
soldier of experience and repute when the White Company 
descended on Italy. As England gave a single Pope to 
Rome, so it sent but a single notable Condottiere to Italy. 
Hawkwood was an extraordinary man : he had the talent 
if not the genius of war : he was clever in strategy, fertile 
in resources, and shrewd in financial diplomacy (backed up 
by the fear of the Company) as the most subtle of Italians. 
His was a thoroughly practical mind. Had he had the 
far-reaching ambition of a De Montreal, he had better 



THE CONDOTTIERI 13 

opportunities of carving out a principality, and he might 
have reigned in the Romagna as Francesco Sforza in Milan. 
But he knew too much of the instability of the dynasties 
he had upset, nor had he an heir to succeed him. He was 
content to live in luxury from day to day, though econo- 
mising in place of squandering like his colleagues. While 
annexing lordships and amassing gold, he had some 
experience of the cares of his scattered riches, for in the 
vicissitudes of a chequered career, they were often making 
themselves wings. His character is well indicated by an 
anecdote told in the novels of Sacchetti, and by a repartee 
much to the point. The monks of a convent received their 
unwelcome visitor with the stereotj^ed salutation of 
" Peace." Hawkwood made rough and ready answer, " I 
live by war, and peace would be my ruin." As for clemency 
or consideration for the weak or helpless, there was little 
to choose between him and the worst of his predecessors. 
The Condottiere, who gave his men no regular pay, was 
constrained to indulge them in all manner of license. The 
White Company robbed, slaughtered, violated and tortured 
like the rest, but is said to have drawn the line at cold- 
blooded mutilation. In any case, with their formidable 
fighting qualities, their terror preceded them, and they 
arbitrarily dictated the terms of submission. 

For thirty years, with brief interludes, Hawkwood was 
in supreme command, and it would be endless to follow 
him in his petty wars and the grasping bargaining which 
filled his coffers to overflowing, as it supplied the lavish 
waste of the Free Companies, who revelled in profligacy or 
starved by turns. An episode or two, taken at random, 
may suffice. Hawkwood had his vicissitudes, though almost 



14 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

invariably favoured by fortune. Once it was his fate to 
be taken prisoner by the allied forces of the Pope and Arezzo. 
But with ample means for paying a ransom, he was free 
again within the year. His captors would have done better 
had they dealt with him as summarily as Rienzi disposed 
of De Montreal. In 1375 the Company was provided with 
bombards and heavy artillery, which strengthened its 
peremptory fashions of diplomacy in treating with walled 
cities. In a single year Florence paid 130,000 florins, and 
Pisa, Lucca, and Arezzo were mulcted in half as much 
again — enormous sums for the time, showing the riches 
of the free republics, which could flourish in spite of that 
eternal squeezing. The Captain, or Grand Marshal as he 
was sometimes called, invested largely in land : he pur- 
chased the lordships of Bagnacavallo and Cotignola in the 
Romagna, each secured by a castle, strongly fortified and 
garrisoned. Lustful of money as he was, he was seldom 
needlessly cruel, but in 1377 he damned himself to infamy 
by his share in the ruthless massacres of Cesena. It is said 
that he remonstrated, but as matter of fact the unhappy 
town was abandoned to his English and the half-barbarous 
Bretons then acting in concert with them. For three days 
and nights it was the scene of ceaseless bloodshed and 
unspeakable atrocities ; yet after all, and age for age, 
there was little to choose between the fate of Cesena and 
the storm of Badajoz or San Sebastian. 

By way of interlude, or to strengthen his position, the 
Condottiere married the natural daughter of Bernabo Vis- 
conti of Milan. This connection and lucrative offers from 
the Florentines centred his interests in Northern Italy. 
Finding his southern lordships difficult to defend against 



THE CONDOTTIERI 15 

the enemies who sprung up everywhere when his back 
was turned, he sold them for a satisfactory price to the 
d'Estes. In the contracts still existing there are minute 
details as to the terms of a virtual sale which was plausibly 
disguised as a mortgage. But though the Company had 
shifted its headquarters, it was still and for ever on the 
move. The Pope, though pleased to get rid of a formidable 
feudatory and turbulent neighbour, engaged Hawkwood 
for an invasion of Naples. Papal thunders had more than 
once excommunicated the Companies. Now Urban VI., in 
signing his commission, addressed the outlaw as his be- 
loved son, giving him carte blanche in effect to ravage Cam- 
pania. Soon the scene shifts again to the North. There 
was a revolution at Milan. With the habitual disregard of 
the Viscontis for family ties, Bernabo Visconti had been 
dethroned by his nephew. It might have been expected 
that Hawkwood would have stood by his father-in-law, 
with whom, moreover, he was in close alliance, the rather 
that Bernabo's sons, knowing his cupidity, offered him 
handsome pay to come to their help. But Hawkwood 
had his own game to play, and he made his bargain with 
the usurper. There must have been hidden motives, for 
the mystery is that the price of his shameful perfidy was a 
comparative bagatelle. 

With consent of the Florentines, with whom thence- 
forth he had a sort of engagement, akin to that of a stand- 
ing counsel, he espoused the cause of da Carrara, Lord of 
Padua. Before the battle of Castagnaro an incident occurs 
which shows that he had something of the subtlety of the 
serpent. He was not precisely pious, but the Paduans 
were superstitious, so before going into action he solemnly 



16 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

invoked the aid of their four patron saints, and his prayers 
were answered. Returning in triumph to the Florentines, 
who, as he well knew, were best able to reward useful 
service, the Condottiere (and for the first time, in the case 
of a foreigner) had the distinguished honour of being 
gazetted Captain-General of their armies. He was nowise 
particular as to giving promises, which the leader of 
mercenaries, with the best intentions, was quite unable to 
keep. He had pledged himself to the Signoria to respect 
their allies, and forthwith he exacted 4000 florins from 
the friendly Siennese. Nor was he more conformable to 
the wishes of his pajonasters when they would have re- 
called him from a fruitless campaign in Naples. 

He would have his way, but on the whole he was 
faithful, and neither he nor they could afford to quarrel. 
He had daughters of fourteen and fifteen who were marriage- 
able, and he desired to see them settled in life. The 
Signoria dowered them handsomely, and even paid for 
their trousseaux when the Condottiere drew his purse- 
strings and declined. Nothing shows more strikingly the 
esteem or terror in which he was held than the fact that 
the great Signorias of Florence and Bologna acted as 
arbiters in settling the terms of the marriage contracts. 
He had spent much and probably had saved little, and the 
Signoria was not ungrateful for what on the whole had 
been good service. As Captain-General he had handsome 
pay and appointments, and even when half-superannuated, 
they continued to him liberal allowances. What is more, 
when his health was failing, they voted him a magnificent 
tomb in the greatest of their churches, which must have 
been inexpressibly cheering to a man who had lived for 



THE CONDOTTIERI 17 

this world more than the other. As death took him by 
surprise, the tomb was never erected. In 1394 he had 
arranged to return to his native England, when a stroke 
of apoplexy carried him off. Florence gave him a public 
funeral with military honours, but his remains were not 
to rest in the Duomo, though a frescoed portrait with a 
noble equestrian figure was to keep his memory green. 
King Richard II. begged the body, and the Florentines 
courteously acceded to the request. Hawkwood's remains 
are believed to rest in the church of his native parish of 
Sible Hedingham. He is said to have fought twenty- 
three battles — such as these mediaeval battles were — and 
to have been only vanquished in one of them. 

Carmagnola 

Carmagnola took what was literally a nom de guerre 
from the town of his birth ; he was born a Bussone and 
baptized Francesco. Few military adventurers were more 
fortunate in their start ; with none was the lustre of a brief 
and brilliant career more suddenly eclipsed in a tragical 
denouement. Philippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, had 
succeeded his father, the famous Gian Galeazzo, after a 
long minority. Galeazzo was no soldier, but at least he 
had courage. His son inherited his ambition and subtlety 
without the courage, but he had the same happy gift of 
choosing his generals well, and when he trusted, he gave 
them his entire confidence. At once he had plunged into 
war to recover the country which in his minority had 
revolted from his rule. Looking on at the siege of Monza, 
a young soldier had attracted his notice by a deed of 



1 8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

singular daring. Following up a kinsman but a bitter 
enemy, he had only failed to capture him by the fall of 
his horse. Carmagnola, for it was he, had something like 
Oriental promotion. Advanced at once to responsible 
command, soon afterwards he was at the head of the 
Milanese armies. His successes were as swift as they were 
sure. He overran the revolted country to the north of 
Milan, starving the castles and seizing the cities. His 
triumphant progress alarmed the Lombard lords to the 
eastward ; there was a formidable league, headed by 
Arcelli of Plasencia, reputed one of the most able warriors 
of the time. The leaders were well matched, but the 
victory rested with Carmagnola. 

Nor was he less successful against the Genoese, though 
Genoa, the commercial rival of Venice, was then at the 
height of its power and prosperity. But it was troubled 
with the invariable dissensions and conspiracies, when some 
noble refugees sought the protection of the Visconti, who 
gladly seized the occasion to go to war. Carmagnola 
struck sharp and quick, overrunning all the Genoese 
territory on the northern slopes of the mountains. Year 
after year he was a thorn in their sides, making inroads 
on the seaboard and threatening their capital. Attacked 
simultaneously by Alfonso of Aragon and reduced to 
financial extremity, they sold Leghorn to the Florentines 
for a great sum. Assailed by sea as well as by land, they 
felt the war must be ended on any terms. They detested 
the Aragonese, whose navy had brought them to grief, 
but seem to have borne no malice to Carmagnola, who 
only fought them in the way of business. The Doge 
resigned his office, signing a treaty of peace with Milan, 



THE CONDOTTIERI 19 

and, by one of the strangest vicissitudes of mediaeval Italian 
warfare, Carmagnola, the captain of the Visconti's army, 
became virtually Doge of Genoa as the Visconti's lieutenant. 
Venice, always cautious and time-serving, thought it 
wise to come to terms with the Visconti, and, in the fashion 
of those Italian states, shamelessly abandoned its allies. 
He consented to a ten years' peace, and Pandolfo Malatesta, 
then Lord of Brescia and Bergamo, was the immediate 
victim. Carmagnola, with his accustomed impetuosity, 
rushed his cities and seized his territory. Thanks to that 
terrible captain, Philippo Maria had then recovered all 
the dominions the regents of his minority had lost. Then 
Carmagnola pushed his victories beyond the northern 
boundaries of Lombardy. Storming Como, he occupied 
the entrances to the passes of the Simplon and St. Gothard. 
The Swiss took alarm, and the southern cantons hurried 
to the rescue, sending an urgent summons to their con- 
federates for support. Though comparatively few in 
numbers, with characteristic courage and foolhardiness they 
did not scout in advance, or wait to count their enemies. 
They were really opposed to an army in overwhelming 
strength, headed by Carmagnola and Angelo de la Pergola, 
the two most redoubtable Condottieri of the day. Out- 
numbered as they were, they maintained the reputation of 
their impregnable phalanx of pikemen, and of the ponderous 
two-handed swords, which had won Morgarten and were 
to win Grandson against mailed chivalry and formidable 
odds. The battle was long and bloody, and would have 
been lost to the Milanese, had not an inspiration of Car- 
magnola's in the crisis dismounted his horsemen, and, 
adopting the Swiss tactics, formed them up on foot. As 



20 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

it was, the battle was drawn and honours were divided ; 
but Carmagnola retained his grasp on the passes. 

Then, when his reputation should have stood highest 
at the Court, events occurred which changed his destiny. 
The Duke, constitutionally sage, blind for once to his own 
interests, committed an act of folly. It was wise enough 
to make alliance with the Queen of Naples and the Pope 
against the Aragonese, who menaced all three. Through 
the influence of Carmagnola, the virtual Doge, he easily 
enlisted the assistance of the Genoese, who detested the 
Catalans, their commercial rivals. Genoa launched a 
powerful fleet, to be sent to Neapolitan waters. Carmagnola 
fully expected the command, but to his disgust, and for 
some inexplicable reason, it was given to Torallo, a new 
favourite. Torallo was no bad choice, but the supersession 
of Carmagnola had far-reaching consequences. 

The free republic of Florence, dreading the masterful 
Visconti and his allies, leagued itself with the Aragonese, 
and with many a minor tyrant who feared the Duke and 
his formidable general. In its alarm it appealed to the 
Emperor, but Sigismund was occupied elsewhere ; and to the 
Pope, but he held to the coalition and turned a deaf ear. 
With Venice it was more successful, and Venice was shaken, 
for though the treaty with Milan had still half its term to 
run, it knew that the Duke was not to be trusted. The 
wavering pohcy of the Council of Ten was decided by 
a most unlooked-for arrival. Of all refugees, the one 
they least expected to see was Carmagnola, the right 
hand of the tyrant of Lombardy, and the leader of the 
Condottieri who had indirectly done them infinite injury. 
He explained his arrival to mistrustful ears. The Duke 



THE CONDOTTIERI 21 

had envied him the wealth he had amassed and his credit 
with the soldiers he had so often led to victory, as his 
services had been too great to be easily forgiven. As a 
matter of fact, the disgrace was real, and Carmagnola had 
been subjected to insults which would have been intoler- 
able to a less haughty spirit. His wife and children had 
been thrown into prison, and he had escaped at the head 
of a troop of horse, making his way to Venice by Savoy 
and Switzerland. Nevertheless the suspicious Senate was 
not convinced that he was not playing a part in concert 
with his late master, till the Duke was guilty of a crime 
and another blunder. He attempted to have Carmagnola 
poisoned : the attempt failed and was traced to its author. 

Once Venice was assured of Carmagnola's good faith, 
the Florentine envoys found a weighty advocate. They had 
urged that, if Florence were crushed, the fall of Venice 
would follow, and that the Duke of Milan would be the 
tyrant of Italy. Carmagnola argued that the Duke was 
less formidable than appeared. He painted him as a 
faineant, devoted to pleasure, guided by unpopular ministers, 
and deaf to popular complaints. He disclosed his most 
secret intrigues and plots. For himself, he said, he had 
sought and found a new country, and he wound up with 
an eloquent and practical peroration. " I bring you my 
profession, which is war. Give me arms, as he gave who 
has driven me to this hard necessity, and you shall see 
if I cannot defend you and avenge myself." The appeal 
was irresistible ; the treaty with Florence was signed, and 
Carmagnola was the captain of the Venetian army. 

The campaign began with the capture of Brescia, though 
he was confronted by his old comrades of the Condottieri, 



22 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

and in greatly superior strength. The effects of its fall on 
the Duke were out of proportion to the actual loss, and 
he repented too late his quarrel with Carmagnola. He 
was partially reassured by a reverse of the enemy, which 
temporarily changed the course of the war. Carmagnola, 
who had hitherto always combined caution with daring, 
let himself be surprised, and suffered severely. But to the 
last he was ever ready to learn, and thenceforth the camps 
he was perpetually shifting were always entrenched and 
guarded by patrols. For his movements were as swift as 
secret ; the surprises were for the most part on his side, 
and his orders commanded unquestioning obedience. 

He brought things to a crisis in a pitched battle which 
was a crushing defeat for Milan and pregnant of conse- 
quences for himself. With trifling losses he took 8000 
prisoners, who immediately fraternised with his troops, 
their frequent brothers-in-arms. Hospitably entertained, 
they were dismissed without ransom, to the natural disgust 
of the mercantile Venetians. As naturally, Carmagnola 
became again suspect, and suspicions were confirmed when, 
contrary to peremptory orders, he set at liberty the 
handful of captives who remained. Suspicions may have 
seemed certainties with the ever-distrustful Council of Ten, 
when he insisted on stipulations of his own in a new 
treaty with the Milanese. The Duke undertook to restore 
the wealth he had confiscated, his lands, and his captive 
wife and daughters. A peace had been concluded of which 
Carmagnola had virtually dictated the terms, but it was 
soon again to be broken. Successful land-wars, from which 
Venice had hitherto invariably refrained, had awakened 
new ambitions. There were proffers of alliance from the 



THE CONDOTTIERI 23 

petty princes whom the Duke had subjugated ; Florence, 
above all, had been urgent in her advances, and Car- 
magnola was again in the field. It was his last campaign, 
and unfortunate in every way. Trusting to his old 
ascendency over the Milanese, he attempted corruption, as 
he had done before, and when he tried corruption he was 
always betrayed. Twice he was lured into fatal ambus- 
cades. Yet these were merely side issues, and at the 
head of such a numerous army as he had never commanded 
before, he should have carried all before him. But now 
he was strangely and suspiciously supine. Keeping pace 
with a powerful fleet ascending the Po, he may be said to 
have looked on while the Venetian admiral, after a battle 
that maintained the fame of the Venetian fleets, sustained 
a disastrous defeat. He made more or less plausible 
excuses as to the flooding of the country, and an epidemic 
among the horses which had dismounted his men-at-arms. 
The Council professed a belief in them, which assuredly 
they did not feel. They acted with their habitual cold- 
blooded craft, and the illustrious victim was doomed in 
advance. He was invited to Venice to consult as to con- 
ditions of renewing the peace. He was received with every 
honour, welcomed by the most distinguished senators, and 
amidst the acclamations of the crowd, the popular hero 
passed along the Grand Canal in a state gondola to the 
ducal palace. The consultations of the assembled Senate 
lasted till late into the night, and then they courteously 
asked Carmagnola to dismiss his wearied suite. As one 
door closed on his attendants, the Doge's guards entered 
by another. The great captain was loaded with fetters, 
and consigned to the dungeon, where next day, with an 



24 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

unhealed wound received in the service of the Republic, 
he was subjected to the torture. It was said he made 
confession of his guilt, but we have only his executioners' 
word for that. The day after that, with a gag in his 
mouth, he passed from the prison to the Piazza of St. Mark, 
where his head fell on the block. Criminal he may pos- 
sibly have been, for we know the laxity of the Condottieri 
on the point of honour when their interests were involved. 
But that he was never publicly put on his defence is a 
strong presumption in favour of his innocence. He had 
gone the way so many went before, when malice had dropped 
anonymous and slanderous accusation in the Lion's Mouth. 

"Thro' that door, 
So soon to cry, smiting his brow, ' I'm lost ! ' 
Was with all courtesy, all honour, shown 
The great and noble Captain, Carmagnola." 

Francesco Sforza 

Carmagnola came to a tragic end. Francesco Sforza, 
who had often faced him in the field, died in the seat of 
Galeazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan. Carmagnola began 
as a private soldier ; Francesco Sforza started with 
opportunities which he improved to the uttermost. He 
inherited the wealth, the fame, and the following of Sforza 
Attendolo, the man of the legend of the axe. The elder 
Sforza, baptized Muzio Attendolo, is said to have got his 
prenomen from Bartiano, his master in war, another re- 
doubtable Condottiere. It is said to have been given for 
his great bodily strength, backed by a fiery violence of 
character. His son, as he was bred in the camp, was 
trained up in the saddle. Ere the age of fifteen he was a 



THE CONDOTTIERI 25 

boy of mark, and had a piece of miraculous good fortune. 
A handsome lad, he had taken the fancy of Ladislaus of 
Naples, and, with the title and fief of a viscount, was sent 
to Calabria as viceroy of the sovereign. Boy as he was, 
he justified the choice, and already showed the talent of a 
formidable leader. An excellent match, his father wedded 
him to Polyxena Ruffi, a beautiful girl of high birth and 
large possessions. The old Condottiere gave the young 
bridegroom excellent advice, inculcating a wise leniency in 
rule and the strict observance of justice. Perhaps the 
most suggestive warning was, that if he was ever betrayed 
into striking one of his guards he should immediately get 
rid of the man. The elder Sforza was then at the height 
of his power. With consent of the Queen of Naples he 
had entered the service of Pope Martin V., with the title 
of Gonfaloniere of the Church. Martin had engaged Sforza 
by large pay and liberal promises as the warrior best fitted 
to cope with Braccio da Mortare, the Lord of Perugia. The 
campaign opened disastrously for Sforza ; he was out- 
numbered, out-manceuvred, and beaten. In his distress he 
summoned Francesco to his aid, showing the faith he had 
in the boy's ability. The war dragged on with changing 
fortunes, when a timely incident in the year of his father's 
death showed to all men how well his son was fitted to 
succeed him in command. The younger Sforza had been 
called back to Calabria to repel an invasion, when he was 
threatened by a mutiny of his captains, who had probably 
been bribed by the gold of Aragon. With the courtesy of 
Condottieri playing the game honourably, they formally an- 
nounced their purpose of abandoning him. Francesco made 
no objections ; he merely asked them to save his reputa- 



26 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

tion by remaining till he could withdraw creditably from 
before the enemy. Without loss of a moment messengers 
were sent to his father and to another of his father's 
captains, demanding immediate succour. Supports came 
up, when forthwith he attacked and captured the traitors. 
An ordinary leader would have given them short shrift, 
and indeed there came peremptory letters from the elder 
Sforza ordering their immediate despatch. But Francesco 
understood the weaknesses of venal mercenaries whom he 
hoped to use on future occasions. He called the prisoners 
to his tent, gave them free pardon, and told them they 
might go or stay as they pleased. If it pleased them to 
stay, their offence should be forgotten. They remained to 
a man, and perhaps that calculated generosity was the 
turning-point of his career. 

For a few months later found him in a still more critical 
predicament. His father, who had come unscathed through 
many a combat, met a dramatic death in the flooded 
Pescara. Face to face with Braccio on the further bank, 
he would insist on fording it where the flow of the tide 
had met the rush of the river. He had crossed in safety 
when he returned to bring up the hesitating loiterers. 
The second passage was fatal. He had stooped to lend a 
hand to a drowning soldier, when his horse lost its footing. 
The last that was seen of the mail-clad rider was his 
gauntleted hands clasped in prayer above the stream. 
His son was already far ahead, pursuing the enemy he 
had driven out of their entrenchments. The tidings, when 
they reached him, struck a double blow, for he seems to 
have been sincerely attached to his father, and he knew, 
besides, how his forces might scatter on his death. But 



THE CONDOTTIERI 27 

he never lost sight of his ambitions, and the youth of 
twenty-three was equal to the occasion. His trumpets 
sounded the retreat, and he fell back on the river. He 
had nearly shared his father's fate when, throwing himself 
into a leaky boat, he launched out with a single oar to 
the aid of some of his sinking followers. The gallant 
rescue was witnessed by all, and when he landed he called 
a meeting of his captains. Then he made them an eloquent 
address, appealing alike to their cupidity and to their 
loyalty to their lost brother-in-arms. The appeal was 
answered with acclamations, and all swore fidelity. He 
lost no time in putting them to the test, marching in 
succession to take possession of all the fiefs which acknow- 
ledged his father's sovereignty. 

His was the only Company in the South which could 
make head against the strength of Braccio, and already 
his reputation was almost equal to that of the veteran. 
The most seductive offers were made to him, and he was 
invited to choose between Florence and Milan. As his 
fixed ambition was to reign, he decided with good reason 
for the latter alliance. The factious Florentines, with their 
inveterate love of freedom, offered no safe seat to a military 
despot. The distracted Milanese, on the contrary, largely 
made up of recent conquests, had already passed under 
the rule of military adventurers, and offered a hopeful 
prospect of being consolidated under a strong dynasty. 
There were possibilities and opportunities. Accordingly 
to Milan he marched, to place himself at the Duke's dis- 
posal, and the event was to prove the sagacity of the 
decision. The Duke took a fancy to him from the first, 
as the man who might fill the place of Carmagnola. 



28 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

But the youth was not placed in supreme command, 
and his beginnings were not fortunate. The dissensions 
and jealousies which gave Carmagnola his triumph, baulked 
his plans for the relief of Brescia. Philippo Maria for once 
was indiscreet in his selection of generals when he pre- 
ferred Malatesta, who was no match for Carmagnola either 
in skill or craft. More than once disaster might have 
been avoided, had the Duke listened to Sforza's warnings. 
Possibly Sforza resented the preference of Malatesta and 
the neglect of his own advice. Certain it is, that he was 
strongly suspected of treachery when he failed in an 
expedition, under his independent command, for the relief 
of Genoa, then closely beleaguered. Yet it is unlikely that, 
with his far-reaching views, he would have compromised 
his reputation for a revenge which must recoil on himself. 
Be that as it may, for two years he was out of favour, if 
not in absolute disgrace. It was not long before the roles 
were reversed, and the Condottiere was courted b}^ the Duke. 

Still nominally in the Duke's service, he had with- 
drawn into winter quarters, and though no pay was forth- 
coming, it is remarkable that none of his mercenaries 
deserted. His forces were undiminished when the Duke 
made the first overtures, and prompted him to invade 
Tuscany, nominally on his own account. The Florentines 
bought him off, but he declined to enter their service. 
His settled aspirations kept him steady to his purposes. 
Again he was more in favour than ever with the Duke, 
either from genuine liking or the sense of self-interest. At 
any rate he had a splendid retaining fee in the promise of 
the hand of the Duke's natural daughter and presumptive 
heiress. His next exploit was invading Montserrat and 



THE CONDOTTIERI 29 

driving the Marquis out of all his dominions. He returned 
to Milan in triumph, to be betrothed to the Princess Bianca 
Maria, who was scarcely out of the nursery. 

With that betrothal, and after the brilliant campaign 
of 1432, his future was assured. The wars he waged for 
Pope Eugenius in the Papal States enabled the Papal 
Gonfaloniere to add other lands and townships to his broad 
southern fiefs. Great as were his military talents, he had 
to face such dangerous opponents as the famous Piccinino ; 
but though he met with the ordinary vicissitudes of war, 
he always rallied after misfortune, and like Antaeus, arose 
the stronger for a fall. Finding that his old master at 
Milan needed him more than he needed the Duke, and 
seeing that the Duke was bound to him by the solemn 
betrothal, he indulged in the liberty and even the license 
of policy and intrigue. Though it is said that no man can 
serve two masters, he played fast and loose successfully 
with both Pope and Duke, though he bore the standard 
of the one and drew pay from the other. Ancona was 
claimed by his Holiness and coveted by the Duke. In 
defiance of both, the Gonfaloniere made himself a princi- 
pality there, adding largely to his former possessions. In 
less than twenty years the son of the woodman turned 
freebooter had far outstripped all his veteran competitors. 
He held in his hand the issues of war or peace between 
Venice and Florence, the Visconti and the Pope : as he 
leant to one or the other, so the balance inclined. Still 
Condottiere at heart, he went on the wise principle of always 
leaving everywhere the seeds of future broils. In the full 
course of victory he stopped short of giving any side a 
decisive advantage. The Duke was jealous of the man 



30 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

he had raised to become virtual arbitrator of the factions 
of Italy. But he could not afford to break with his future 
son-in-law, who always dealt kindly with him in a view 
to the succession. And the Pope was in similar case ; 
he dared not offend his Gonfaloniere. So, as Bianca Maria 
was now marriageable, the wedding was celebrated at 
x'\ncona — Sforza had just captured it — with magnificent 
ceremony and much martial pomp. The pair had the 
papal benediction, and the bridegroom the reversion of 
the rich Milanese. 

The succession opened with the death of his father- 
in-law, shortly afterwards, in the summer of 1447, but it 
cost him an arduous struggle, and taxed his astuteness to 
the utmost. There were factions in Milan ; his was in the 
majority, but there was a minority that desired the freedom 
of a republic. Sforza was still the leader of their armies, 
and, guarding the passages of the Po against Venice, he 
distinguished himself by the brilliant capture of Piacenza, 
disgracing himself for once by his merciless abuse of his 
victory. For forty days the unhappy town was given 
over to pillage and all manner of outrages. The cruelty 
recoiled on himself ; the Milanese went in terror of their 
formidable general, and hesitated more than before to give 
themselves to such a master. But when Sforza found his 
future subjects troublesome, he invariably achieved some 
exploit to make them feel him indispensable. The sequel 
to the ruthless sack of Piacenza was the great victory of 
Caravaggio, when the Venetians were put to hopeless rout. 
Orders were regularly sent him from the Council of Milan, 
which he obeyed, ignored, or eluded, as suited his policy. 
When it served his purposes he carried them out with 



THE CONDOTTIERI 31 

infinite promptitude and resolution. Friends and enemies 
in the capital were always asking alike whether their general 
was false or faithful. So, in the excitement over that 
crushing blow he had struck at Caravaggio, when he made 
his triumphant entry into Milan the victory was acclaimed 
by enthusiastic crowds. The frenzy of jubilation was 
followed by reaction. Then, persuaded that the duchy 
was not to be won by fair means, he decided to take it 
by force. He changed front of a sudden, and had recourse 
to a stroke of policy — policy singularly audacious even 
for those times, for which Sismondi suggests, apparently 
with insufficient reason, that he had been preparing since 
he first engaged himself to the Visconti ;— insufficient, 
because the shrewdest man could not have foreseen the 
incalculable changes of the Italian kaleidoscope. On his 
own account he made peace with Venice, admitting the 
Florentines as a third party, for at Florence Cosmo de Medici 
was his firm friend. His stipulation was that the allies 
should assure him his wife's inheritance and make him the 
sovereign ruler of Milan. Whether it was an act of treachery 
or of legitimate self-defence, he was only intriguing among 
intriguers with superior astuteness. 

Soon the Milanese had reason to regret his desertion 
and repent their quarrels with him. He overran the 
districts around the city, blocked their access to markets, 
and cut off their water. Reduced to straits which resulted 
in discord and riots, they were encouraged again when 
Venice, always vacillating, abandoned the traitor and 
actually took the field against him. The Florentines now 
stood aloof from both, and he had only underhand subsidies 
from his friend Cosmo. They had all mistaken the genius 



32 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

of Sforza, if they thought he would not rise to the occasion. 
On the one hand he held the Venetians at bay, on the other 
he strengthened the blockade of Milan. Tantalised by 
hopes of effective success which were as often disappointed, 
at last the famishing city surrendered. Sforza rode in at 
the head of his men-at-arms, when the fickle demos 
welcomed, with what seemed unfeigned rejoicing, the 
man who had starved them for more than a year, and 
the mere mention of whose name had been prohibited a 
few weeks before under heavy penalties. To be sure, the 
famishing populace knew they were to be fed. Simul- 
taneously with the disarmament which was systematically 
carried out, provision trains streamed into the place ; and 
as the wine-casks were broached, all was drunken jubilation. 
So safe did the new tyrant of Milan feel, that he rode out 
within a few hours after having ridden in, and returned 
to see to the safety of his camp. But he knew the value 
of martial pomp and lavish display in dazzling and in- 
timidating the Italian mob. He fixed a day for the formal 
assumption of the dukedom, and for the public coronation 
of himself and the bride through whom he claimed the 
heritage of the Visconti. The goal of his ambition had 
been reached at last : the Condottiere had changed his 
skin, to become the most powerful and honoured of the 
Italian sovereigns. 



II 

SIR JAMES TURNER 

Scott has taken old Robert Munro for the essential type 
of the immortal Dalgetty, but unquestionably many touches 
of the portraiture, and of the scenes in which the Ritt- 
master figured, were borrowed from the Memoirs of Sir 
James Turner. Both may be taken as trustworthy, except 
perhaps where Turner is on his defence, but they were 
very different men, Munro was a soldier, pure and simple : 
Turner played a variety of parts, and was deeply involved, 
to his manifold peril, in the political intrigue of the period. 
He was brought into familiar and confidential relations 
with all sorts and conditions of men. He was the trusted 
agent of the exiled Charles ; he was honourably received 
at the Courts of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland ; he was 
in touch with the Scottish statesmen and generals — with 
Montrose, Hamilton, and Middleton, with Argyle, Leven, 
Lauderdale, and Rothes. He was the brother-in-arms, 
abroad or at home, of savage old Dalziel and of Graham 
of Claverhouse. He began by fighting the Protestant 
battle with the Swedes ; he ended by persecuting Cove- 
nanters when he held command in the Westland shires. 
In his lively narrative we have a breathless succession of 
incident — of warfare, of captivity, of escapes from cap- 
tivity, of slipping across the seas with false names under 



34 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

forged passes. Few men had travelled Western and 
Central Europe more frequently in all directions ; he 
knew each river, canal, and seaport between the French 
frontiers and the Polish borders. Like Munro, he was 
never so happy as with the pen in his hand, but unlike 
Munro, in his story he is never prosy. 

Munro was a staunch Presbyterian and pious, who 
fought throughout for the Protestant cause, and according 
to himself, would have gone to the stake for his opinions. 
Turner had as few scruples of conscience as the Ritt- 
master ; he changed his creed on occasion with his colours 
and his service, and with perfect candour he takes us into 
his confidence as to pledges solemnly sworn with no in- 
tention of keeping them. It is true that in writing his 
Memoirs he is almost as edifying in his moralising as 
Munro, deploring the laxity of his earlier practice. That 
is the tribute the old soldier pays to decency, but it gives 
the stamp of truth to a tale which seems essentially 
veracious, and which is confirmed by contemporary writers 
wherever we have a chance of checking it. Pay and 
plunder were the first considerations with the penniless 
cavalier of fortune ; the pay was almost invariably in 
arrear, and as to booty. Turner, on his own confession, was 
as little scrupulous as his fellows. Of course we have only 
his own word for it, but he seems, like Bailie Jarvie's father 
the deacon's friend, to have been honest " after a sort." 
He accounted honourably for considerable sums confided 
to his charge, and according to himself was foolishly 
generous in his dealings with the Danish Ministry, who 
would readily have paid for his recruiting in advance. He 
was certainly a devoted and most affectionate husband to 



SIR JAMES TURNER 35 

a wife from whom he always parted in pain, and who made 
many a dangerous journey to meet him ; nor need we 
doubt him when he says that some ruthless deeds laid to 
his charge were so many baseless slanders. The lenient 
treatment he received when captured by the fanatical 
Westland Whigs is the best proof of his relative humanity. 

Like Dalgetty and most men " of that kidney," he was 
entered to warfare young. Sorely against his will he was 
made a Master of Arts, and he seems to have been meant 
for the Church, but the pulpit was not his vocation. In 
his seventeenth year, " a restless desire entered my mind to 
be, if not an actor, at least a spectator of those warrs which 
made so much noyse over all the world." He had friends, 
and was fortunate in getting an ensigncy in the regiment 
Sir James Lumsdale — the " stout Lumsdale " of Dalgetty's 
"intake" of Frankfort — was then raising for the service 
of the Lion of the North. "The thrice-famous Gustavus," 
Turner styles him, and it is significant of the military 
reverence in which the Swedish King was held alike by 
followers and enemies that he is seldom or ever mentioned 
without some superlative epithet. The regiment landed at 
Elsinore, but the King, who had " such a way of over- 
running countries," was already in the heart of Germany, 
and the regiment never came to a sight of him. Already 
his fortunes were beginning to decline, and forced to with- 
draw from Nuremberg by famine and Wallenstein, he was 
soon to fall on the field of Lutzen. But the Scots speedily 
found occupation when, in the winter of 1633, they were 
attached to the Swedish army in Lower Germany, 

Turner's entry to campaigning was a rough one. " With 
this army I had a lamentable cold, wet, and rainie march," 



36 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

till they laid siege to Hamelin, the town of the Pied Piper. 
When the Imperialists had been beaten in a great battle 
for the relief, there was slaughter enough, and in cold 
blood, " to flesh such novices as I was." The famous 
Finnish Cuirassiers, as stern as their climate, " professed 
to give no quarter." Lpng in that long leaguer, his fare 
was none of the best : his best entertainment was bread 
and water ; little of the first, but an abundance of the 
latter. In the subsequent marching and countermarching 
he suffered much from lack of meat and clothes, lying out 
in the open without covering of any kind. But it was the 
hardihood next to the courage of the Scots which recom- 
mended them so strongly to the kings of the North, and 
then Highlanders were wont to couch in the snows with 
no wrapping but the plaid. " I was so hardened with 
fatigue, and so well inured to toile, that I fully resolved 
to go on in that course of life of which I had made choice." 
He was an apt pupil in the art of campaigning, and within 
a year had learned to help himself. His own company 
was in rags, without a dollar of pay. " But I had got so 
much cunning, and became so vigilant to lay hold on oppor- 
tunities, that I wanted for nothing, horses, clothes, meate, 
nor money, and made so good use of what I had learned, 
that the whole time I served in Germanic I suffered no 
such misery as I had done." How he came by necessaries 
and luxuries we gather from his picturesque and pathetic 
descriptions of the miseries of the peasantry when fair 
towns and peaceful homesteads were blazing everywhere. 
" Aged men and women, most lame or blind, supported 
by their sonnes, daughters, and grandchildren, who them- 
selves carried their little ones on their backs, was a ruthful 



SIR JAMES TURNER 37 

object of pity to any tender-hearted Christian, and did 
show us with what dreadful countenance that bloodie 
monster of warre can appear in the world." All the same, 
the tender-hearted Christian who made war his profession, 
had to live by it. And these ruthless ravages recruited 
extenuated ranks, when each boor, when burned out and 
beggared, was constrained to become brigand or soldier. 

Turner had better luck than Dalgetty : he rose rapidly 
from ensign to captain, and then, like the Rittmaster, threw 
up his commission on light cause of offence. His colonel, 
a Courlander, " imposed too hard conditions of recruits." 
From the frontiers of Franconia he went straight to 
Scotland, to seek for employment under the Prince Elector, 
who was levying men there. So he had been told; but, 
finding he had been misinformed, he hurried back to 
Germany, where he undertook to raise a company under 
a Swedish colonel who had the reputation of a brave and 
honest cavalier. The colonel swindled him shamefully, and 
being left seriously out of pocket, he travelled to the Court 
of Stockholm to lay his grievances before the Regency. 
They were civil, and even free-handed, but referred his 
case to Field-Marshal Banner, then far away in Bohemia. 
Turner declined going on a wild-goose chase, and asked a 
pass for Scotland, which was granted. It gave free license 
for " horses, meate, and drink by the way ; a custom much 
in use then, and very grievous to the poore countrymen." 

Then there is the amusingly frank exposition of a 
cavalier of fortune's code of morality. There were two 
ships lying in the roads off Gothenburg, an Englishman 
bound for Hull, a Dane chartered for Leith. It was a 
toss up as to his future in which he took a berth : if he 



38 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

went to the Humber he was to be for the King, if to the 
Forth he was to stand for the Covenant. An accident he 
deemed providential decided the matter, and he sailed for 
Leith. " I had swallowed without chewing in Germanic, a 
very dangerous maxime, which military men there too much 
follow : which was, that so we serve our master honestlie, 
it is no matter what master we serve." From Edinburgh 
he followed Leven's army to their leaguer on the Tyne, 
and there, through the dissolute Rothes, the renegade of 
"Wandering Willie's Tale," he got a major's commission. 
A Royalist at heart, " I did not take the National Covenant, 
not because I refused to doe it, for I wold have made no 
bones to take, sweare, and signe it, and observe it too ; 
for I had then a principle, having not yet studied a better 
one, that I wronged not my conscience in doeing anything 
I was commanded to doe by those whom I served. But 
the truth is it was never offered to me." 

The German wars had been no bad training for service 
in Ulster against the Irish of the Rebellion in 1641. As 
the Chouannerie in Brittany, it was a war of ambushes and 
surprises, of desultory fighting through swamps and wood- 
lands, of lining hedgerows with musketry and meeting 
pikes, scythes, and bludgeons with desultory volleys. In 
the woods of Kilwaring, the rebels who were taken " got 
but bad quarter, being all shot dead." The storm of 
Newry was as bloody as the more famous sack of Drogheda, 
when the garrison, with many merchants and traders of the 
town, were carried to the bridge and butchered to death, 
some by shooting, some by hanging, and some by drown- 
ing. These summary executions were licensed by the 
Marshal of Ireland and Major-General Munro. " But our 



SIR JAMES TURNER 39 

sojers, who sometimes are cruel, for no other reason than 
that man's wicked nature leads him to be so, seeing such 
pranks played by authority at the bridge, thought they 
might doe as much anywhere else." The tide in full flood 
suggested the pleasant idea of drowning a hundred and 
fifty women who were huddled together below the bridge. 
" Seeing the game those godless rogues intended to play," 
Turner galloped up and put a stop to it before more than 
a dozen of the unfortunates were murdered. 

The garrison of Newry was sorely pressed for lack of 
provision for " both backe and bellie." So Turner was sent 
to meet an Irish colonel : each envoy was backed up by 
a score of horse, and after drinking deep of Scotch whisky 
and Irish usquebaugh, they happily arranged an armistice. 
But as no money came in from England or Scotland, and 
nearly as little meal. Turner went to Scotland to interview 
the General. Leven had led his Scots to Newcastle, and 
thither Turner followed. The soldier found so much to 
criticise, that it explains the precipitate flight of those Scots 
from Marston. The men were lusty, well clothed, and 
well paid, but raw and undisciplined ; the officers, from 
the General downwards, left everything to desire. They 
were puzzled as to the passage of the Tyne. Operations 
were directed by a sort of Aulic council, and Turner, with 
other veterans, was called into consultation. Their advice 
was ignored, and the attempt to throw a pontoon bridge 
over the river might have ended in grievous disaster had 
the garrison made a midnight sally in force. The Scots 
had not counted with the tides : there was a causeless 
panic ; there was a comedy of errors, and Turner made 
himself merry over the stupidity of both sides, and the 



40 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

incompetence of General Leven, whom he always held in 
supreme contempt. 

He posted back to Scotland, where he joined his regi- 
ment, which had landed from Ireland, and there he was in 
the thick of political intrigue. The soldier of the Covenant 
was conspiring for the cause of the King. He had had 
"toyle" and trouble enough for the space of two years in 
Ireland, having got no more in the employment than what 
barely maintained him, and now he was casting about for 
a more lucrative engagement. He discovered that the 
Solemn League and Covenant, to which the States required 
an absolute submission, was nothing but a treacherous and 
disloyal combination against lawful authority. He held 
secret converse with other disaffected officers, and they 
agreed that it was their duty to do the King what service 
they could against his ungracious subjects. They meant 
to join with Montrose, who had his Majesty's commission, 
and was meditating his infall on the Highlands. Turner 
had won over the Earl of Callender, and was enjoying the 
Earl's hospitality. Callender had taken the deepest oaths, 
even wishing the Lord's Supper should turn to his dam- 
nation were he to engage with the Covenanters. But 
Montrose, made wary by experience, declined to trust 
either the oaths or the promises of those suspected con- 
verts. As to Callender he proved to be right, and so, says 
Turner in his disappointment, " by Montrose his neglect, 
and by Callender's perfidie, was lost the fairest occasion 
that could be desired." " It was the inauspicious fate and 
disastrous destinie of the incomparablie good King." That 
plot had failed, but a man must live, and reluctantly he 
marched south again to England with his Covenanting 



SIR JAMES TURNER 41 

regiment. He made a fashion again, with brother officers, 
" to take the Covenant, that under pretence of the Cove- 
nant we might ruin the Covenanters, a thing that (though 
too much practised in a corrupt world) is in itself dis- 
honest, sinfull, and disavowable." Disavowable he certainly 
believed it, for in the summer of 1646 he sought a secret 
interview with the captive King at Sherburne. Charles 
knew him for a man of the time, but " having got some 
good character of me, bade me tell him the sense of our 
army concerning him." Turner was frank, told him he 
was virtually a prisoner, and offered his services to effect 
an escape. The conversation was abruptly interrupted by 
Leven's orders, who must have known Turner even better 
than the King, nor was he ever again given an opportunity 
of seeing " his incomparable sovereign." 

Turner had offered his Majesty to do him all possible 
service, but is silent as to why he did not join the standard 
of Montrose. Subsequently, however, he did do the royal 
cause some service, " after a sort." He was easily per- 
suaded to act as Adjutant-General of the army which 
marched under David Leslie into Kintyre — not, of course, 
simply for base considerations of pay, but " because I 
thought it dutie to fight against those men who first had 
deserted their Generall Montrose when he stood most in 
need of them, . . . and next had absolutely refused to lay 
down their arms at the King's owne command." He con- 
firms all Sir Walter Scott says in the " Legend " of the 
formidable passes leading from the Blackmount into 
Argyle's country, only traversed by the hunters and shep- 
herds. Had Alaster M'Donald secured them with his 
thousand of brave foot, Leslie could never have entered 



42 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Kintyre but by a miracle. But the valiant and reckless 
Colkitto was " doomed to destruction." By another 
miracle of folly he threw 300 of his best men into the fort 
of Dunaverty, and 200 more into another sea-girt fortress. 
They seem to have been well found in food, but neither 
stronghold " had a drop of water." The garrisons sur- 
rendered at discretion. Turner acquits Argyle, who had 
good grounds of grief against the Irish for their cruel 
ravages of his country, and charges the guilt, or at least 
the responsibility of a massacre, on Leslie. For he says 
that the General would willingly have shown mercy, but 
was urged persistently by his truculent chaplain to smite 
the captive Amalekites hip and thigh. " Each mother's 
son was put to the sword," save a youth, whose hfe, for 
some reason, was successfully begged by Turner. Indeed, 
with all his love for free quarters and lust for booty, he 
seems to have been invariably averse to useless bloodshed. 
No cold-blooded atrocities are laid to his charge, sls was 
the case with Claverhouse, Dalziel, and Grierson. 

The slaughtered Irish had been in arms for the King. 
Turner, who had been Adjutant-General with the Cove- 
nanters, was now to play his part in the Duke of Hamilton's 
ill-fated expedition in aid of the English Royalists. There 
was a strange state of affairs in Edinburgh. The Duke 
and his friends had got the better in the Parhament of the 
Covenanting faction, headed by Argyle and supported by 
Leven and David Leslie. A vote had been carried for the 
raising of troops to march into England for his Majesty's 
releasement. A counter petition was drawn up, which 
was to secure religion and the Kingdom of Christ ; it was 
called the petition of the army, and was subscribed by 



SIR JAMES TURNER 43 

Leven, David Leslie, and all the distinguished Covenanting 
leaders. It was believed, says Turner, that " the rest 
would follow suit, but they were deceived." He and the 
" honest " folk, with Middleton at their head, declined to 
incur the dishonour which Fairfax had drawn on himself 
by intimidating the Parliament at Westminster. There 
was a little civil war in Scotland, by way of preliminary 
to the other undertaking, which for a time threatened to 
be formidable. The preachers fired the enthusiasm of the 
Whigs. The conflagration spread in the south-western 
shires, where the Covenanting element was strong. Glasgow, 
of all the considerable towns, was the most refractory. 
Turner was sent with horse and foot to bring the recal- 
citrant city to reason. There he entered on the prac- 
tices which he found so efficient in Ayr and Dumfries 
after the Restoration. " I founde my work not very 
difficult, for I learned to know that the quartering two 
or three troopers and half a dozen musketeers was ane 
argument strong enough in two or three nights' time to 
make the hardest-headed Covenanter forsake the Kirk and 
side with the Parliament." Finding his Glasgow men grown 
pretty tame, he tendered them a paper at point of sword, 
which was known facetiously as "Turner's covenant." 
" It was nothing but a submission to all orders of Parlia- 
ment ; " it was subscribed by all, with rare exceptions, 
and was so highly approved at headquarters that he was 
ordered, with his booted apostles of loyalty, to reduce 
Renfrewshire to obedience. Similar measures were adopted 
elsewhere under other leaders : armed assemblies and con- 
venticles were dispersed with " bloody broyles " : but 
though the conflagration was suppressed, the fires were 



44 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

still smouldering when the royal forces mustered at 
Stewarton. 

Never was a foolhardy and belated undertaking more 
surely doomed to disaster. It was undertaken and set out 
with the fond idea of efhciently aiding the English loyalists, 
who were already reduced to extremities. Colchester was 
the last garrison in the southern counties which held for 
the King, though Carlisle was the immediate object of 
relief, where the gallant Langdale was closely beset by 
Lambert. Half the levies had not come in when the army 
marched, and Lanark, the Duke's brother, with the saddest 
forebodings over the fortunes of his illustrious house, was 
left to mount guard over the rebel Whigs. Hamilton's 
forces, according to Turner, were no better than an armed 
rabble. They had no cannon, not a single field-piece, and 
little ammunition. Commissariat and transport were abso- 
lutely lacking. Incessant rain had damped their powder 
and their spirits. Their councils were distracted : Hamilton, 
though he displayed great personal gallantry, was no 
general, and as they pushed stubbornly forward, with 
Lambert behind and Cromwell in front, their fate was 
assured and only hung in suspense. The inevitable 
denouement came in Staffordshire, where they surrendered 
on terms, " good enough, but very ill kept." Hamilton, 
like his royal master, was brought to the block, and Turner, 
with other officers, went into captivity at Hull, 

But we are only concerned with his personal adventures, 
and they are sensational enough. At Hornby there was 
a question as to the route of the advance. Turner, agreeing 
with Middleton, gave his opinion for Yorkshire : urging 
that Lancashire was a county fuU of hedges and ditches, 



SIR JAMES TURNER 45 

where Cromwell's veterans would have great advantage 
over Hamilton's untrained musketeers, whereas in the more 
open Yorkshire they might use their horse and " come 
sooner to push of pike." As with Dalgetty, the pike was 
Turner's darling weapon. Once he had more of it than 
he cared for, when he was wounded in the house of his 
friends. Mutinies had been not infrequent in the insub- 
ordinate ranks, and on the retreat to Wigan there were 
nocturnal alarms which threw the army into panic-stricken 
confusion. " I marched with the last brigade of foot 
through the toune : I was alarmed that the horse behind 
me were beaten and runne several ways, and that the 
enemy was in my reare." He faced about with his brigade 
to cover the retreat, when a regiment of horse came up, 
" riding very disorderhe." He had them halted while he 
" ordered his pikes to open, and give way for them to ride 
or runne away." " But my pikemen being demented (as 
I think we all were) would not heare me, and two of them 
runne full tilt at me." One of the thrusts he parried ; the 
other ran him through the thigh. Not unnaturally he lost 
temper, and had recourse to violent methods. " I forgot 
all rules of modestie, prudence, and discretion. I rode to 
our horse and desired them to charge through these foot. 
They, fearing the hazard of the pikes, stood. I then made 
a cry come from behind them, that the enemy was upon 
them." Whereupon they charged the foot so fiercely, that 
the pikemen scattered and bolted for cover. The cavalry 
distinguished themselves on that occasion as they had 
never done before, for they rode right over the retiring 
brigades, and one Colonel Lockhart " was trode doune from 
his horse, with great danger of his life." But wounded 



46 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

and ruffled as he was, the old soldier promptly recovered 
his presence of mind. He caused his drums to beat, though 
the enemy was near, got his men together, and marched 
on through the darkness till it was fair day. Then he was 
prevailed upon by Major-General Baillie to take some rest 
in a chair, as he had slept none in two nights and ate as 
little. Having rejoined the Duke, his first idea seems to 
have been to desert him : "to march forward a day or 
two and then by a turne to endeavour to get into Scot- 
land." But that was impracticable ; the trained bands 
were up in arms ever3^where, and there was no breaking 
away from the main body, which was being steadily pushed 
south, with all retreat cut off. Three nights he passed in 
the saddle ; the fourth he lodged in a hedge; and slept so 
sound that the trumpets could not wake him ; and as he 
met with civil treatment from his captors, it must have 
been a relief when he yielded himself a prisoner of war. 
Colonel Overton, who held Hull for the Parliament, was 
friendly, though according to special orders from head- 
quarters. Turner was strictly guarded. Indeed Cromwell 
— at Argyle's instigation, as Turner believed — paid him the 
high compliment of ordering him into irons. He made no 
doubt that, if greater matters had not put him out of the 
Protector's mind, some greater mischief would have be- 
fallen him. For more than a year he was under ward, 
dieted and boarded at his own costs. He paid eighteen 
pence a meal ; a shilling for his bed, a groat for his man's, 
a shilling for coals, and a groat for candles. The time did 
not hang so heavy on his hands as might have been 
expected, for he had the use of books, pen, and paper. 
When Cromwell had gone to Scotland, the Governor be- 



SIR JAMES TURNER 47 

stirred himself in his favour, using his influence for letters 
of liberty from Fairfax, on Turner giving his parole to go 
beyond seas and not return to the three kingdoms for a 
twelvemonth. 

It was after the execution of the King that he sailed 
for Hamburg, where he found himself among a number of 
penniless compatriots attending the orders and motions 
of Montrose. It was lack of money, as he tells us, which 
scared the adventurer from following the Marquis on his 
last fatal expedition. But though often short of cash, he 
generally had some sort of credit ; his wife came over to 
Holland with supplies, and after a visit to the Coiut of 
Denmark, he was persuaded by Lord Carnegy to venture 
himself with him in Scotland again. The visit was sadly 
ill-timed, for they landed at Aberdeen on the very eve of 
the battle of Dunbar. The persecution was hotter than 
ever against those who had followed the lead of Hamilton, 
so the gentlemen separated and went into hiding. Soon, 
however, they could venture to emerge. The titular King 
of Scots, trimming his sails to the wind, commanded all 
who would serve him to submit themselves to the Kirk. 
But Turner's dragooning of Glasgow and the West was 
remembered against him, and it needed time and much 
influence to condone his flagrant offences. However, in 
due course he was absolved, made Adjutant-General, and 
given a regiment by his Majesty's special command. 
" Behold a fearful sinne ! " piously ejaculates the auto- 
biographer. " The ministers of the Gospel took our re- 
pentances as unfeigned, knowing well they were counter- 
feit, and we made no scruple to perjure ourselves, speaking 
against conscience and judgement." 



48 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

His new engagement ended abruptly with the rout of 
Worcester. He was one among the thousands of prisoners 
who were to be carried in triumph to London. The wily 
veteran was too many for the careless guards. On this 
occasion he had refused his parole, and Generals Dalziel 
and Drummond, who had been brothers-in-arms with the 
Muscovites, likewise chivalrously declined to sign, lest 
Turner, as the sole recusant, might be the worse used. He 
profited by their generosity, for in loyal Oxford, with the 
help of friendly hosts, he made a moonlight flitting through 
the roof, escaping all the outposts of horse and foot, though 
not without obstructions and some merry passages. He 
walked to London in company of half-a-dozen bargemen 
who had served the murdered King as soldiers. The com- 
panions of his travel were lusty but debauched ; they 
would not pass a single ale-house on the way, and Turner 
had to pay for any amount of drink ; " but it was a 
vexation for me to drink cup for cup with them, els they 
should have had no good opinion of me." Good fellows 
they were nevertheless ; they would have no gold from 
him, when he bade them a grateful farewell in London, 
but, under pressure, consented to take half-a-crown apiece 
to drink his health on their return, and so " with many 
embraces we parted." They were faithful as the poor 
Highlanders who sheltered the Young Cavalier. He had 
felt obliged to reveal his identity, and they would have 
been handsomely paid for betraying him. 

In London he stirred little abroad, for the streets were 
full of Scottish acquaintances who might have been less 
scrupulous, and the watch at the ports was then so strict 
that he dared not go out of England till it was known 



SIR JAMES TURNER 49 

that the young King was safe in Paris. Through bribed 
jailors he was in constant communication with Middleton, 
then a prisoner in the Tower. " I did approach him, for 
my intelligence by my English friends was very good, that 
his life would be taken, so soon as he was cured of a shot 
he had received, and therefore had laid down three ways 
for his escape." But Middleton hesitated, because if he 
had broken out, his Scottish estates would assuredly have 
been forfeited, begging Turner to be gone and see to his 
own safety, giving him messages to the King and friends 
in France. Middleton subsequently reconsidered the 
matter and did escape, placing Turner, as it chanced, in 
an awkward dilemma at Dover. He had gone to the 
coast with a forged passport, and would have had no diffi- 
culty in embarking had he not been mistaken and arrested 
for Middleton. A brother Scot was called in to cross- 
examine him, but that Mr. Tours " proved ane honest 
man," and intelligently responded to a private sign. 
Turner arrived safely at Paris, where he had a gracious 
reception from his Majesty and cordial welcome from old 
acquaintances. 

Turner, though he had thrown off the student's gown 
to don the cuirass, might have been a scholarly man in 
more peaceful times. Few soldiers of fortune would have 
withdrawn from the bustle of intrigue to the seclusion of 
a 'pension that they might improve themselves in French. 
But Mars must have been in the ascendant at Turner's 
birth. He was disturbed in his peaceful quarters by the 
fighting of the Fronde, and when Conde was driven in on 
the Porte St. Antoine, in great peril from land thieves and 
water thieves on either bank, Turner went by river to St. 

D 



so SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Germains, whither the exiled Court had withdrawn. There 
he was fortunate in forming the friendship of the future 
Marshal Keith, and after an enjoyable trip to Rouen, they 
were sent in advance of Middleton to Holland to beat up 
recruits for that general's projected campaign in Scotland. 
How Turner found money for his travelling expenses is a 
mystery. It would seem that, contrary to all the prin- 
ciples of his profession, he sometimes went wayfaring on 
his own charges, for his subsequent mission from the King 
to Lower Germany was as an accredited beggar to more 
or less impecunious Scottish gentlemen. It shows the 
humiliating expedients to which the young monarch was 
reduced. Travelling night and day, on a long winter 
journey, he came back with 1500 dollars, A peregrination 
in the spring was more successful, when Middleton was so 
elated by his collecting three times as much that he sent 
his own brother-in-law on a similar errand to the Swedish 
mercenaries. Sir Edward Hyde, a keeper of the royal 
privy purse, must have had at once an anxious and easy 
time. There were few finances to administer, yet at the 
same time it was hard to meet the daily expenses of the 
frugal household, and supply the King's occasional extrava- 
gances. But from love or policy, from jealousy of English 
commerce or hatred of Cromwell and the Puritan regime, 
money always trickled in somehow. The Spanish Govern- 
ment of the Netherlands gave grudging subsidies, with the 
permission to levy regiments if the men were forthcoming ; 
and the merchants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with 
" well-affected Scotsmen " in Holland, now and again came 
down handsomely. 

Middleton sailed for Scotland, with the veterans Dalziel 



SIR JAMES TURNER 51 

and Drummond in company, but Turner for some reason 
was left to follow. He lost nothing by not being attached 
to headquarters, for Monk held the North in his firm grip, 
and the expedition proved a ludicrous fiasco. For himself 
he ran through another gamut of adventure, and his 
experiences at hide-and-seek may have proved useful when 
afterwards he hunted down persecuted Covenanters in the 
hills and glens of Galloway. After a tempestuous voyage 
in a Norwegian timber ship he was landed on the coast 
of Fife. The friendly skipper buried his baggage and some 
arms he had brought over, and he ventured forth on the 
quest for recruits. He picked up a few officers out of work, 
who professed themselves ready to join Middleton, and 
they lurked together for some weeks in the Perthshire 
Highlands, then scoured by strong parties from the English 
garrisons. They had news from the North by troopers of 
Middleton, who had " taken a liberty to themselves to 
disband." Everything was so discouraging, and the affairs 
of his Majesty were so obviously " out of frame," that he 
decided to beat a retreat. Nevertheless he owed it to 
himself to attempt something before he left, and there is 
an account of a skirmish which is interesting, as it very 
evidently was in Scott's memory when he describes the 
meeting of Dalgetty with Menteith and Montrose. Turner 
came across an officer with a score of disbanded troopers 
who had thoughts of " making a purchase of 200 pairs of 
pistols " stored in a house in Kirkcaldy. " Purchase " was 
a pleasant euphemism, and payment was to be in powder 
and shot. Carousing at an ale-house where the ale was 
good, they conferred the command on Turner, who settled 
the bill, to the relief and surprise of the landlord, as " it 



52 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

was a thing not usual at that time." It was fortunate he 
had primed his party well with Hquor, for that afternoon 
they met thirty well-mounted men of the enemy, Enghsh 
and Scots. " We trifled away the time with enquiring for 
whom we were, and at length I bid one of my officers 
tell we were for God and King Charles." The enemy ran 
basely, but there was an unfortunate contretemps, through 
which Turner, who drew the line between Scottish rebels 
and fair English foes, came to be falsely charged with the 
murder of an English prisoner in cold blood. 

He came back with cold news to the Court, which was 
then at Aix-la-Chapelle, for few men were more continually 
on the move than the royal exile in his evil days. At 
Paris, Cologne or Aix, Bruges, Breda, or the Hague, he 
was seldom made heartily welcome, and often warned 
sharply away. Turner reported to Hyde and Newburgh, 
who were billeted together in a convent ; but though he 
declared himself ready to go on the King's service to Japan, 
he demurred to being sent back to Scotland. Middleton 
had shown small respect for him, and Glencaim mistrusted 
him as a democrat. His time at Aix was passed not 
altogether unprofitably, for a course of the baths cured 
him of a disease, epidemical in the Highlands from which 
he had brought it, " I mean the scab or itch." As his 
master had neither work nor pay for him, he went to seek 
an engagement elsewhere. He had a pass for Bremen 
without a discharge. But soldiering was slack then, and 
adventurers not in demand, and there was a whole year of 
involuntary repose. Other soldiers of greater distinction 
felt the pinch as he did. In the summer of 1655 Dalziel 
came to Bremen in disguise, and spent a few days with 



SIR JAMES TURNER 53 

him. The fierce old warrior was in despair ; he declared 
that all was lost in Scotland, and it was then he sought 
congenial service with the Tsar of Muscovy, whence he 
returned ten years afterwards to dragoon the Whigs of 
the Southland shires and sit, superintending tortures and 
signing death warrants, on the Blood Council of Edinburgh. 
Charles had cherished some delusive hopes when Crom- 
well declared war with Spain, but it would be wearisome 
to follow Turner in schemes that came to nought and 
through a succession of disappointments. The note of the 
whole is chronic impecuniosity. Sent on a mission with 
Middleton to the King of Poland, they were stopped en 
route by stress of poverty, " in pitiful condition." They 
borrowed from magistrates and private persons money that 
was never to be repaid. They had to leave the inns and 
find sorry lodgings apart ; their money was all spent, their 
credit gone, and everything was pawned except their 
wearing apparel. Always by permission of King Charles 
he took service with the Danes, and was commissioned by 
them to raise a regiment. The estimated cost was to be 
paid him in advance, but as half the men were to be sought 
in Holland, he declares that in his scrupulous generosity 
he would only accept half the pay. It was very unlike 
the shrewd old routier to refuse, as Dalgetty says, coined 
money, freely offered, and he bitterly regretted it later 
— more especially when the monarchs of Denmark and 
Sweden had made peace, and when the united princes, to 
his intense disgust, discharged the Danish levies in most 
cavalier fashion " under paine of death," giving each of 
the privates half a dollar and bidding them go where they 
pleased. 



54 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Colonel Turner went in quest of the money he had 
chivalrously refused. As was to be expected, he failed to 
get it, for the Danish king was almost as hard up as him- 
self. For the next two years, with empty pockets, he was 
dancing attendance on the impecunious Charles, whose 
Court was agitated by alternate hopes and fears, according 
to the reports from England. It seems certain that he 
was admitted to their most confidential counsels. When 
the troubles began between Monk and Lambert, as his 
fortunes were desperate and he had nothing in Scotland to 
lose, he was made the mouthpiece and probable scapegoat 
of the Scottish lords, who offered his Majesty loyal help 
if he could send them armed assistance. Charles was 
lavish of assurances and agreeable to their proposals, 
except as to their desire to get rid of Middleton as general, 
who was stiU in high favour. By the royal command 
Turner preceded the King from Brussels to Breda, where 
Charles for once was cordially welcomed by his sister and 
his nephew, the Prince of Orange. In a personal inter- 
view he charged Turner to give his Scottish friends all sort 
of satisfaction, except as to Middleton's dismissal. But 
the chances were always against the soldier of fortune. 
Events moved so fast, as much to the astonishment of the 
King as to the disgust of his envoy, that he never had the 
opportunity of discharging that delicate mission. " In less 
than two months the King was proclaimed in all his three 
kingdoms." 

Nevertheless Turner had done and endured so much 
that he counted confidently on high honours and rich 
rewards. If he did all he professes to have done, like 
many another honest and less helpful cavalier, he was 



SIR JAMES TURNER S5 

somewhat scurvily treated. He had the privilege of kissing 
the King's hand, and received the accolade of knighthood, 
by which he set small store, as it was promotion without 
pay. Moreover Charles, who was always lavish of pro- 
mises and costless civilities, " assured me he had ordered 
his commissioner to provide for me." The commissioner 
was his old travelling companion Middleton, whom he 
seems always to have regarded with suspicion, and who 
probably believed that Turner had played him false when 
acting for the Scottish lords, who were his avowed enemies. 
At any rate the chapter of the foreign experiences ends 
with the dolorous plaint of the man with a grievance. 
" Earle Middleton never did doe, act, or propone anything 
for me." 

The rest is ni.itter of Scottish history. Three or four 
years were passed in comparative obscurity, and then 
Turner figured only too conspicuously in what Macaulay 
would have called " the evil days " of the persecution. 
Among the " booted apostles of prelacy," next to Claver- 
house and Dalziel, not even Grierson of Lagg, the proto- 
type of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, is more heartily denounced 
or more bitterly execrated by Wodrow or Patrick Walker. 
The philosophic Hume gives him the epithet of ferocious, 
and even Scott, who was no friend to " the beastly Cove- 
nanters," deals with him harshly, quoting authorities who 
describe him as fierce and dissolute. It may be doubted 
whether they do not do him some injustice. He was a 
mercenary soldier, emphatically a man of his time, who, 
like Claverhouse, believed that the orders of his superiors 
absolved him from all personal responsibility. He certainly 
was not naturally cruel, nor bloodthirsty, when he had his 



S6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

faculties under command. In short, he seems to have 
been rather a good fellow. But he owns himself that he 
was a hard drinker, and Burnet, who was rather friendly 
to him than otherwise, tells us he was mad when he was 
drunk. Like all his kind he was greedy of gain, and 
turned his times of command to profitable account. To 
a licentious soldier given a free hand the opportunities were 
irresistible, and when he assures us he did not abuse them 
excessively, he may have been astonished at his own 
moderation. Had he been Claverhouse or Dalziel, we may 
assume confidently that he would have been shot or hung 
out of hand, when the Whigs took him in his lodgings at 
Ayr. But his excuse for surrendering convicts himself, as 
it condemns the infamous system of dragooning. It was 
the application of the financial and moral thumbscrew to 
the recalcitrants who were backward with exorbitant fines. 
All of his troopers save thirteen were billeted by twos and 
threes, where it was their business to make themselves as 
obnoxious as possible, and when rapine and outrage of 
every kind recommended them to favourable consideration 
at headquarters. 

At any rate, if he sinned he suffered, when he was made 
to do penance for his military subservience to the per- 
secuting edicts of Lauderdale and Sharpe. The old soldier 
was in hourly terror of death all the time he was in the 
hands of the Covenanters, whom he ingenuously entreated 
to submit to the King's clemency, reminding them that 
they had to do with a merciful prince. The crisis came 
at Rullion Green, when his life seemed to depend on the 
issue of the skirmish. He saved himself by a timely com- 
pact with his guards, and was hopeful that his misfortunes 



SIR JAMES TURNER 57 

had ended with the suppression of the rebellion. As 
matter of fact they were only beginning, and, charged with 
atrocities done to order and with malversations of money, 
he had melancholy experience of military commissions and 
the civil courts. Calumniated he may have been, and no 
doubt was, for it was the interest of the Government to 
make him answerable for the rising ; his victims were 
encouraged to bear testimony against him, and as to his 
intromissions with fines and exactions, for these he had no 
vouchers to show. 



Ill 

SIR JOHN HEPBURN AND COLONEL ROBERT 

MUNRO 

Among the Scottish officers who came to the front in the 
Thirty Years' War, few attained to greater distinction than 
Sir John Hepburn, who was long in command of the 
Brigade, and his staunch friend. Colonel Robert Munro. 
They were brothers-in-arms, invariably counting on mutual 
support with absolute confidence. Sir John never gave his 
reminiscences to the world, but he is among the most con- 
spicuous figures in all the histories of the war — Schiller 
excepted, who says little of the foreign auxiliaries — and 
notably in the prolix and metaphysical memoirs of his old 
comrade Munro. So in following the fortunes of the one, 
we incidentally sketch the career of the other. Both were 
characteristic representatives of the best of their country- 
men, although of very different temperaments and actuated 
by different motives. Hepburn, like Bayard, was the soul 
of chivalry ; his aspirations for military glory induced him 
to volunteer for each desperate piece of service. He was 
sensitive to touchiness on the point of honour, and on a 
fancied affront from the leader he had idolised and faith- 
fully followed, he rejected the King's condescending ad- 
vances, resigned his commission, and sheathing the sword 

which had served Gustavus so well, declared he would 

58 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 59 

never draw it again for Sweden. When we remember that 
Gustavus with starving troops was then playing his last 
stake against the leaguer of Wallenstein, we may conceive 
how hotly Hepburn's anger must have burned. 

Hepburn was a Catholic : it was said that the quarrel 
began or was envenomed by some slights cast by the 
Protestant champion on the Catholic creed. Munro was a 
Presbyterian, and rather a dour Presbyterian at that ; he 
dwells on the privileges that Gustavus forced on his troops 
by commissioning chaplains to every regiment and insisting 
on regular preaching and prayers. Munro, writing of his 
campaigns in old age, is always preaching and moralising 
himself, but he seems really to have been a deeply religious 
man. He says as much for his Scottish soldiers, though 
that is more than we can easily believe. Talking of his 
regiment when ordered into action, he observes, " Never 
men went on service with more cheerful countenances, 
going as it were to welcome death, knowing it to be the 
passage into life." Hepburn, as I have said, was a modern 
knight of chivalry. Munro was a steady-going soldier, 
unflinching in face of the most formidable odds, and re- 
signed to daring anything in the way of duty. He had 
initiative too and readiness of resource, as he showed on 
various occasions. His Highland fire was tempered by 
Lowland phlegm, and he kept himself cool and thoughtful 
in the worst emergencies. But he never ran his head idly 
against stone walls, and his ambitions were limited to 
regular professional advancement. The closely-printed, 
black-letter folio in which he has recorded his " Expeditions 
and Observations " is become very scarce ; it was pub- 
lished in Red Crosse Street, London, in 1637, and the 



6o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

copy preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, was 
probably that which was carefully studied by Scott in 
getting up his materials for the " Legend of Montrose," and 
evolving the immortal personality of Dalgetty. Annota- 
tions on the margin have a suspicious resemblance to the 
handwriting of the novelist, though we are slow to suspect 
that epicurean bibliophile of tampering with the virgin 
pages of a borrowed book. Be that as it may, though 
Munro is intolerably prolix and perversely confused ; 
though he drags in a Butler-like range of pedantic erudition 
by the head and shoulders ; though he moralises in season 
and out of season ; though his chronology defies exegetical 
analysis, and he makes wild work of German orthography 
and topography ; nevertheless the volume is a veritable 
treasury of graphic information as to soldiering experiences 
in that interminable war. It is evident that Harte has 
drawn on it freely for his " Life of Gustavus Adolphus," 
especially in regard to strategy and tactics, and the innova- 
tions and improvements in the science of war which the 
King introduced to the confounding of his enemies. Munro 
merely relates ; he does not comment or criticise ; he had 
no theories of his own, though he held strong opinions. 
But he tells, or we read between his lines, how Gustavus 
had cast the traditions of the past behind him, thinking 
out ideas for himself, with the inventive genius of a 
Napoleon. We see him anticipating the practice of the 
great Frederick in the handling of his troops and the 
management of his artillery, using spade and pick on all 
possible occasions with a skill and persistency which has 
never been surpassed, and only approached when the 
Federals in the American Civil War had been taught caution 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 6i 

by misfortune. Thanks to the constitutions of his Swedes, 
Scots, and Finlanders, indifferent to cold and toughened 
to famine, in a succession of surprises he taught the Im- 
periahsts and the tacticians of the Catholic League that 
there need be no winter in war. Nevertheless, there was 
no neglect of precaution or preparation which the most 
careful forethought could suggest. He expected his 
soldiers to starve on occasion, but he indulged them in 
almost a superfluity of clothing, when the enemy were 
forced from their winter quarters, ragged and shoeless. 

Munro made the regiment his home, absorbed in the 
routine of his profession. Battles and marches, sieges and 
infalls, were indelibly impressed on a most retentive memory; 
for we cannot suppose that, if he ever kept any rough 
diaries, they survived the chances of war and the old 
campaigner's many misadventures. He is not a picturesque 
writer, but in his pages, or even reading between the lines, 
we see pictures, as realistic or suggestive as those in Schiller, 
of the horrors of the war that devastated Cjermany. 

Munro had what was rare in those days, the unsoldierly 
virtue of sobriety. The cellars of the Rhine, the Main, 
and the Danube must have been answerable for many a 
muddled enterprise, for many a deadly ambush or surprise. 
With the Imperialists, Wallenstein's lavish hospitalities set 
an evil example, which his generals, less temperate than 
himself, were only too ready to follow. In that respect 
Munro had the sympathy of his Swedish Majesty, who 
always kept a tight rein on his troops, but although per- 
sonally abstemious, had sometimes to sacrifice himself from 
political motives. At HaUe the King was to entertain the 
Saxon Elector, who notoriously carried conviviality to 



^2 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

excess. Munro had walked into the banqueting-room 
where the supper was laid out, when the King took him 
ruefully by the shoulder and whispered, " Munro, you 
could be master of the bottles and glasses to-night, in the 
absence of old Sir Patrick Ruthven ; but you want the 
strength of head to relieve me on such an occasion." For 
in that Thirty Years' War, in the words of Scott, a brave 
and successful soldier was a companion for princes. Princes 
compounded for arrears of pay by treating colonels and 
captains with flattering familiarity. Munro, long before 
he had made a name, had dined with Christian of Denmark 
in his " gorgeous and pleasant palace " ; and he often sat 
at the board of Gustavus, when the King had learned to 
value him as one of his most reliable officers. 

He had seen much rough service with the Danes before 
his regiment in 1630 exchanged, with the assent of Christian, 
into the Swedish service. Immediately thereafter he had 
an opportunity of showing his resolution and resource in 
not the least notable episode of the war. He had orders 
from Oxenstiern to embark his men at Pilau, on the Bay 
of Courland, for Wolgast on the Pomeranian coast. He 
shipped them on the Lillynichol and the Hound, while a 
small "skoote" or boat was freighted with the horses and 
baggage. The favouring breezes blew up into a storm, and 
they ran for shelter into the Borneholme roads. There the 
Lillynichol, which carried Munro and his fortunes, was 
parted from her consorts. Though she had sprung a leak 
he put to sea again with his Highlanders, pumping by 
relays of forty-eight, but as the water still gained on them 
he headed for Dantzic, The storm abated nothing of its 
violence, and they were rolling water-logged on a lee shore, 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 63 

embayed among reefs and shoals. Then there is a thriUing 
and detailed story of the shipwreck, which might have 
suggested materials to Falconer or Byron. They were cast 
ashore on the isle of Rugen, clinging through next forenoon 
to the wreck, with the boiling surf making a clean breach 
over them. All their boats had broken loose or been 
swamped. Munro patiently attended the Lord's mercy 
with prayers, till at one of the clock he turned manfully 
to help himself. He landed his men on rafts or spars ; 
he was the last to leave the shattered ship, and he managed 
besides to save some of the arms. 

But never were castaways in worse case, for all the 
baggage was on the missing skoote, and as the ammunition 
had been lost, the matchlocks were useless. He learned 
from friendly boors that the island was occupied in force 
by the Imperialists, and that he was eighty miles from the 
nearest Swedish outposts. Not unnaturally he was " in a 
pitiful feare," and naturally he might have made up his 
mind to unconditional surrender ; for his men were ex- 
hausted and dispirited, and in no condition for fighting. 
Surrender never seems to have suggested itself. He had 
learned from the boors that the neighbouring Castle of 
Rugenwald was still held by the captain for the Duke of 
Pomerania, though the town under its shadow was in 
possession of the enemy. Munro hid his men among the 
cliffs till nightfall, and then despatched a messenger to the 
captain to tell him he was at hand with 300 shipwrecked 
Highlanders, and to undertake, if he were furnished with 
powder and ball, to clear Rugenwald of the Imperialists 
and hold it for the Duke and the King. The captain was 
delighted, but prudently gave himself leave of absence, 



64 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

while he sent a man in his confidence to conduct the Scots 
into the castle by a secret passage. There they armed 
themselves : thence they descended on the town, and after 
some desperate fighting mastered the garrison. 

The surprise was daring enough, but a more serious 
question was how to maintain himself. A mounted 
messenger sent to Stettin had brought back peremptory 
orders from the King to hold the place and the adjacent 
passes. The orders had been anticipated by the Scot, who 
had not wasted an hour. He had blown up the bridge 
which spanned the river ; he had armed some of the boors 
and set them to watch the passage, and many of the 
country people, with his own Highlanders, were busily 
engaged in throwing up entrenchments and deepening the 
moat. Scouting and foraging parties were sent out in all 
directions, for though the King had strictly enjoined treat- 
ing the country folk with every consideration, that did not 
exclude the inevitable levying of contributions. Munro 
declares he had kindly welcome from the inhabitants, and 
found noble entertainment everywhere with fish and fowl, 
fruit and venison. For nine weeks he made good his 
position against incessant alarms, till Hepburn by forced 
marches brought him welcome relief. 

Hepburn took over the command as senior officer, and 
Munro was ordered to join the forces beleaguering Colberg 
under General Kimphausen. Colberg, where the Imperialists 
had stored much booty, and which was deemed almost 
impregnable, was a place worth winning or saving, and 
they were known to be advancing in force to the relief. 
The line of approach was by a pass, guarded by the town 
and castle of Schelbeane, and Hepburn with a troop of 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 6^ 

horse was sent to reconnoitre it. His report was that it 
ought to be occupied immediately, and Kimphausen, who 
is said to have had no love for the Scots, and was never 
sorry to send them on desperate service, ordered Munro 
to march thither forthwith. In case " the enemy should 
pursue him " — which was sure enough — he was to fight to 
the last man. Munro came, saw, and did not like the 
situation. He had much the same opinion of it as Dalgetty 
of Ardenvohr, for with its ruined works he deemed it a 
scurvy hole for any honest cavalier to maintain his credit 
by. " I was evil sped, unless the Lord extraordinarily 
would show mercy." However, he set to work to make 
the best of things ; laboured indefatigably night and day, 
for three days, and when a trumpeter summoned him to 
treat, from an army drawn up for battle, returned the heroic 
answer, that he had no orders to that effect, but ample 
provision of powder and ball at their service. Having no 
strength to hold the town, after some desperate fighting 
he withdrew into the castle. Summoned a second time, as 
the last chance of having quarter, he gave a similar reply. 
He had fired the town to cover his retreat, and withdrawn 
among blazing houses and falling roofs. When the flames 
died down, the enemy followed and set up their batteries 
within forty paces of his castle walls. He had to fear the 
worst, for the besiegers outnumbered him by sixteen to 
one, and they were directed by MontecucuUi, perhaps the 
ablest of the Imperial generals of the second rank. But 
MontecucuUi, if bold, was also wary, and in all such cases 
both besiegers and besieged had to calculate the chances 
of impending relief. Home was known to have joined 
Kimphauser, and it was certain that the important out- 

£ 



66 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

post of Schelbeane would not be sacrificed without a 
battle. MontecucuUi abruptly broke up his camp, retiring 
under cover of mist and darkness. 

I am not rewriting the Memoirs of Munro, but selecting 
incidents that illustrate the times and the men who figured 
in them. His first interview with the immortal Gustavus 
was characteristic of both. A company in Munro's regi- 
ment had fallen vacant, and the King, without consulting 
him, appointed a Captain Dumaine. Munro declares that he 
did not object to the man but to breach of privilege. " By 
his Majesty's capitulation he had the freedom to place the 
officers of his regiment." When he waited on the King he 
had the wit to take his friend Hepburn with him, who 
was a persona grata. Munro sturdily stuck to his point, 
saying that Dumaine was a foreigner who lacked the words 
of command. Gustavus retorted that he would soon learn 
them ; but demanded the name of Munro's nominee. The 
answer was that it was a cavalier who deserved well of 
his Majesty, named David Munro. His Majesty, jumping 
at conclusions, exclaimed that Munro, to appoint a cousin, 
would actually disobey his orders. Then Hepburn inter- 
posed, and the matter was arranged by the Major con- 
senting on this occasion to waive his rights. The incident 
shows how Gustavus, with all the imperious decision that 
never bent in matters of supreme importance, knew how 
to condescend and even to honour valued officers when 
only points of punctilio were involved. 

In the depth of that bitter winter, and apropos to the 
intaking of the town and fortress of Dameine, which was 
most valiantly defended, Munro has some interesting 
remarks on his Majesty's methods and idiosyncrasy. 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 67 

"He did observe his Majesty's dexterity in command, 
discharging the duties of several officers ; " in fact, he was 
greatly addicted to overdoing himself. When his mind 
was made up there was no moving him. " Neither did he 
like it well if an officer was not so capable to under- 
stand his directions as he was ready in giving them." 
"■ Such a general would I gladly serve, but such a general 
I shall hardly see, whose custom was to be the first and 
last in danger himself." And, like all generals of genius, 
he regulated his strategy by the temperaments of his 
opponents. " He knew the devices and engines of his 
enemies, their councils, their armies, their art, their dis- 
cipline, . . . and he understood well that an armie being 
brittle like glasse, that sometimes a vaine and idle brute 
was enough to ruine them." The one point in which the 
King's personal conduct conflicted with his commands was 
his carelessness in exposing himself to dangers. He set an 
evil example to officers as reckless of life as himself. He 
always thrust himself forward into the hottest of the fire, 
led the fiercest of the charges when the fortunes of battle 
were in suspense, and ultimately paid for his temerity by 
his glorious death. At Lutzen he only wore a buff coat 
which could not turn a musket ball, though then he is said 
to have had the sufficient excuse of a half-healed wound. 
Rittmaster Dalgetty quotes his famous exclamation, " Now 
shall I know if my officers love me by their putting on 
their armour ; since if my officers are slain, who shall lead 
my soldiers unto victory ? " And the Rittmaster tells how 
the regiment of Finnish Cuirassiers was reprimanded and 
lost their kettledrums, because once they had taken per- 
mission to march unarmed, leaving their corselets on the 



68 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

baggage waggons. Munro relates an incident at the leaguer 
of Dameine, significant at once of the hero's foolhardiness, 
and of the good humour with which he heard the remon- 
strances of his humbler brothers-in-arms. He had ventured 
far forward on a frozen marsh, spying into the enemy's 
works with a prospect glass. The ice gave way, the King 
was immersed to his middle, but fortunately it was near 
Munro's picket. As it happened, the guard there was com- 
manded by that favourite of the King who had been forced 
on the regiment against the Major's wishes. Captain 
Dumaine rushed to the rescue. The King " wagged to him 
to retire, lest the enemy might take notice of them," but 
it was too late. Under a salvo from a thousand match- 
lock barrels the King extricated himself, threaded the hail 
of bullets by a miracle, and sat down to dry himself by the 
guardroom fire. The Captain, being a bold-spoken gentle- 
man and well bred, began very familiarly to find fault with 
his Majesty for his forwardness in hazarding his person in 
such unnecessary danger, and the King, having patiently 
heard him out, thanked him for his good counsel, and could 
not but confess his fault. Defiant throughout, he went 
straight to dinner in a cold tent, called for meat, dined 
grossly, took a great draught of wine, and only then con- 
senting to change his clothes, turned out again to face a 
sortie from the enemy. 

Had any of his officers on duty shown such misplaced 
zeal, he would infallibly have been placed under arrest. 
Probably displeased with himself, he immediately came 
down upon an unlucky Dutch captain whom he caught 
going to the trenches in a cloak. He had him recalled, 
sent another in his place — " which was a disgrace to the 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 69 

captain " — and reproved him openly, telling him, if he had 
intention to have fought well, he would have felt no cold, 
and consequently the carrying of the cloak was needless. 

Happily for himself, Munro's battalion was not in 
garrison at New Brandenburg, where 600 of the Highlanders 
were mercilessly slaughtered, and where some of his most 
valued comrades perished. Their leader, Lindesay, fell in 
the breach, handling his pike like a common soldier. For 
nine days behind the shattered works they had made 
desperate resistance against great odds. Tilly had pushed 
the siege with characteristic determination, and Kimphausen 
had defended the place with indomitable courage, for relief 
was daily feared or expected. The news of the catastrophe 
was brought to the Swedish camp by two Scottish officers, 
who swam the ditch in their corselets and saved themselves 
in the darkness. Hot as was the Highland blood, the 
Highlanders as a rule were generous in victory, but now 
there was a universal cry for vengeance, and soon after 
the massacre of New Brandenburg was fearfully revenged 
at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. 

But writing afterwards in cold blood, Munro has one of 
his " observations " to make on the affair, and considering 
the ordinary precedents of that ruthless war, it would seem 
the Scots excited themselves unnecessarily. They knew 
the risks and they took the chances. Tilly had twice 
offered terms, which were peremptorily refused. The place, 
as it proved, was practically untenable, and the penalty of 
defending an untenable position was death. It was all a 
question of the arrival of timely succour, and Munro dis- 
cusses the delicate dilemma to which Kimphausen found 
himself reduced. He pronounces him not void of blame 



70 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

for refusing a treaty in due time, seeing he had no certainty 
of release ; and being left to his own discretion by his 
Majesty, he should have embraced the opportunity of time 
which, once past, is not to be recovered. It is better, he 
adds, to be in safety through preventing than basely to 
suffer under our enemies, occasion being past. As to 
which it can only be said, that had Munro's practice been 
conformable to these sage precepts, he would never have 
distinguished himself by that defence of Rugenwald which 
gave him a long lift up the ladder of promotion. 

The discussion might have been spared. Though Munro 
did not know it, the lives of the valiant garrison might 
have been saved had not a despatch miscarried. All had 
depended on precarious communication in an unsettled 
country. The first orders to Kimphausen had been to hold 
out : they were countermanded when pressing strategical 
considerations decided Gustavus to march upon Frankfort- 
on-the-Oder. The news of the fall and the slaughter 
reached the army when on the march, and the Scottish 
brigade consoled itself with the hopes of a speedy and 
deadly revenge. Yet the assault on Frankfort-on-the-Oder 
in the circumstances was one of the most daring of 
Gustavus' audacious ventures. Frankfort was supposed to 
be as strong as it was rich ; it was garrisoned by 9000 
veterans under three such distinguished leaders as Schom- 
berg, Tiefenbach, and Montecuculli ; and the terrible 
septuagenarian Tilly lay at no great distance, with more 
than twice that number of men, ready to hasten to the 
relief. The little army of Gustavus barely outnumbered 
the garrison, but they were all picked men and admirably 
disciplined. Munro blames the Imperialist generals for not 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 71 

marching boldly out to meet the Swedes in a fair field, 
laying down the sage doctrine, that " it's never good to 
be always defending " ; but though the defence was stub- 
born as the attack was resolute, events seem to show 
that their decision was wise. Munro's story of the in- 
take is very typical of the innumerable storms of fortified 
places during the war that brought wreck and ruin to so 
many flourishing towns. It illustrates, too, the pomp and 
the pleasantries as well as the horrors and terrors of the war. 

The Swedish King threw out his light horsemen to 
scout the country towards Tilly's leaguer. Then "himself 
discharging the duty of a General-Major (as became him 
well), he besought the aid of Sir John Hepburn to put the 
army in order of battle." It advanced with drums beating, 
trumpets sounding, and colours displayed, " till coming 
near the town and seeing no show of opposition, knowing 
of the nearness of our enemies, it was resolved to press 
on of a sudden to take the place." Nevertheless, unlike 
Henri Quatre at Cahors, the more cautious Gustavus had 
not recourse to immediate storm. In consultation with 
Hepburn he promptly distributed his brigades so as to 
make a close investment. Then there was some warm 
work in the way of reconnoitring. The King himself, with 
his prospect glass, was in the front, as was his custom. 
The Imperialists opened fire ; Colonel Teufel of the staff 
was shot in the arm, his Majesty making great mourn for 
him, and Munro's lieutenant was shot in the leg. The 
enemy, hanging out a goose in derision, made a sally in 
force, but after some sharp skirmishing were driven back 
into the town. 

Next day was Palm Sunday, when his Majesty with the 



72 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

whole army served God in their best apparel ; the King 
following up the sermon with a stirring appeal to his 
soldiers, imploring them to take these ill days in patience, 
in the hope of happier times, when they should drink wine 
instead of water. Indeed, after much blood-letting they 
were immediately to have wine enough and to spare. For 
the preaching of the King was promptly followed up. As 
it was drawing towards dusk he called a captain of 
Hepburn's regiment, told him to don a light corselet, to 
call for a sergeant and a dozen volunteers, to wade the 
graff, to climb the fortification, and to find out if men 
could be conveniently lodged between the mud wall of the 
town and the outer ramparts of stone. Such daring 
attempts were successfully made, although by single men, 
at San Sebastian, and at Bhurtpore when besieged by Lord 
Combermere, and in this case Captain Gunter came back 
in safety with his little party to report favourably. The 
storm was decided on ; the storming columns formed up, 
and all the cannon, great and small, were charged — the 
King had brought a long train of artillery with him — that 
the clouds of smoke from the general discharge might 
mask the rush in the impending assault. So it came off, 
and Munro in the turmoil can only speak for what he did 
and saw himself. To the roar of the guns his column 
sprang forward ; and under veil of the smoke they waded 
the ditch, up to the waists in mud and water, and climbed 
the scarp to find themselves confronted by palisades, well 
fastened and set fast in the wall. Those obstacles were 
nothing so formidable as the chevaux-de-frise and spiked 
planking which Phillipin prepared for our stormers at 
Badajoz, nor to the diabolical Russian arrangements for 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 73 

the reception of the Japanese at Port Arthur. But the 
defenders, who fought desperately afterwards, seem to have 
been taken by surprise and panic-stricken, for Munro 
remarks that, had they not retreated in great fear, he could 
not have entered but with great hazard. 

They retreated, but rallied again to make a stand at a 
sally-port in the inner wall, " whence with cannon and 
musketry they did cruel and pitiful execution on our 
musketeers and pikemen." Munro does not mention 
Dalgetty, but it was then that he, with " stout Hepburn, 
vahant Lumsdale, and courageous Munro," made entry at 
point of pike. Hepburn was shot above the knee in the 
leg of which he was lame before, " Who said to me, 
' Bully Munro, I am shot,' at which I was wondrous sorry." 
That reminds us of Welhngton riding with Lord Anglesea. 
His major, a resolute cavalier, was shot dead, and it was 
then that Lumsdale and Munro, seizing pikes respectively, 
forced the narrow passage, shoulder to shoulder. They 
made a stand within till tlieir pikemen were drawn up and 
" starched " with muskets ; then there was another rush 
on the enemy, who fell back in disorder, Munro and 
Lumsdale charged up one street ; General Banner with a 
fresh body of musketeers pressed the pursuit up another. 
The town on the hither side of the river was taken, " the 
enemy being well beaten " ; the cries for quarter were 
answered by yells of " Remember New Brandenburg," and 
small mercy was shown, except to some officers who were 
worth saving and held to ransom. It must be owned that 
the garrison deserved their fate ; they were the brigand 
bands who under ruthless leaders had been savagely 
ravaging Brandenburg and Pomerania, 



74 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Munro says something on hearsay of what had been 
passing elsewhere. The blue and yellow brigades, being 
esteemed of all the army both resolute and courageous, 
were told off to enter " the Irish quarter." For the 
weakest part of the defences had been commended to the 
charge of the Irish Celts, under command of the chivalrous 
Walter Butler, a cadet of the house of Ormond. The blue 
and yellow brigades, brave as they were, had their work 
cut out for them. Numbers prevailed in the end, but the 
Irish, though weak, stood to it with pike and sword till 
most part fell fighting. Butler, with a shattered arm and 
his thigh transfixed, was a prisoner ; and as for the rank 
and file, " those valiant Irishes," as Dalgetty says, " being 
all put to the sword, did nevertheless gain immortal praise 
and honour." 

Munro's brigade, with all its discipline, piety, and 
morality, had no sooner cleared the streets, heaping them 
with corpses, than it broke loose from control. " The 
fury past, the whole street being full of coaches and rusty 
waggons richly furnished with all sorts of riches, as plate, 
jewels, gold, money, clothes, &c., whereof all men that 
were careless of their duties were too careful in making of 
booty, that I did never see officers less obeyed." The 
temptation was great, for as at Vittoria of the Peninsular 
War, Frankfort was a storehouse of all the plunder the 
Imperialists had been gathering in the course of their 
campaigning. And Gustavus, like Tilly at the sack of 
Magdeburg, did not enter the town till the " fury " was 
over. It would have been attempting the impossible to 
rein in his hot-blooded soldiers from slaughter, pillage, and 
debauch ; and indeed he is said to have cheered Hepburn's 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 75 

column to the storm by telling these Scots to remember 
New Brandenburg. But the Swedes and Scots only 
slaughtered men in arms, whereas Tilly's ruffians slew 
indiscriminately, tossing infants into the flames and sparing 
neither age nor sex. 

Lansberg was the last Pomeranian fortress left to the 
Imperiahsts. Gustavus, with his habitual rapidity of action, 
lost no time. Home had already enveloped it with 
squadrons of cavalry, when the King marched from Frank- 
fort with 3200 musketeers, 800 horse, and a battery of 
artillery under Tortensohn, his best artillerist. Hepburn 
was in immediate charge of the column, though still so 
weak that he could scarcely sit in his saddle. Munro was 
second in command. It was their duty to see that the 
fprce was well supplied with entrenching tools, with sledge- 
hammers, and ladders. It was a bold undertaking, for the 
defenders twice outnumbered the assailants, and they were 
all seasoned veterans. On the night of their arrival, Munro 
and his Highlanders lay down before a heavily armed 
sconce, protected by a deep graff of running water. Munro 
was ordered to go to work at once, entrenching himself, 
throwing up counter-batteries, and running forward ap- 
proaches. He laboured indefatigably, and thought he had 
acquitted himself well when his Majesty turned up before 
break of day. " Finding the works not so far advanced 
as he did expect, he fell a chiding of me, and no excuse 
would mitigate his passion till he had first considered on 
the circumstances, and then he was sorry that he had 
offended me without reason. But his custom was that he 
was worse to be pleased in this kind than any other of his 
commands, being ever impatient." 



76 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

The King himself had not wasted time. He had found 
a blacksmith in the hamlet where he slept who undertook 
to show a path over the western swamps and a secret 
passage into the town, if the deep ditch could be bridged. 
Floating bridges had already been constructed ; they were 
flung across graff and morass, and Munro with 250 of his 
musketeers, and a colonel with as many dismounted 
dragoons, gingerly followed the lead of the blacksmith across 
planks that threatened submersion under their measured 
tread. The sconce was taken after some sharp fighting, 
and Hepburn coming limping up with the supports, they 
entrenched themselves against a possible outfall from the 
town. But the Imperialists lost heart and consequently 
honour. Strange as it may seem, they sent a drummer to 
Munro in his sconce to parley for quarter ; the drummer 
was blinded and passed on to the King, who condescended 
to take the garrison over to mercy. But he was em- 
barrassed by the very natural apprehension that they might 
make trouble when they saw to what a feeble force they 
had surrendered a fortress so formidable, for it had thrice 
baffled Gustavus before, and no pains had been subse- 
quently spared in strengthening it. The garrison was not 
suffered to march out until he had been strongly reinforced 
from Frankfort. The blacksmith was made burgomaster 
of the captured town, and had a handsome gratuity in 
ducats into the bargain. 

The storm of Frankfort was to be balanced by the sack 
of Magdeburg. Gustavus would gladly have saved that 
great and friendly city, but the princes of North-eastern 
Germany had been hanging back, and his communications 
must be made sure before advancing. After taking Lans- 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 77 

berg and liberating Pomerania, he moved on Berlin to 
bring the vacillating Brandenburg Margrave, his own 
brother-in-law, to reason. The menace was enough, and 
then Munro and his Scots were withdrawn into winter 
quarters at Old Brandenburg. Munro liked the quarters 
well, though he thought it a dreary town, situated between 
sandy wastes and morasses. But the beer was good, and 
" they did try it merrily," till quarrels broke out between the 
Scots and the Swedes, when after a time they came to the 
sensible conclusion that their brawling had best be reserved 
for the common enemy. Munro liked his comforts when 
he could get them, and in one of his innumerable digressions 
he discusses the various vintages and breweries of Germany. 
For nine years, he says, the regiment had ever the luck 
to be in excellent quarters, where they did get much good 
wine and great quantity of good beer. Hamburg and 
Rostock were deserving of high commendation, but for his 
own part he gave the preference to the Calvinistic Seebester, 
as he once told the Chancellor Oxenstiern. " I said it 
pleased my taste well. He answered merrily, ' No wonder 
it tastes well to your palate, being the good beer of that 
ill religion.' " In the Major's opinion the worst of that 
profusion of strong liquors was, that the soldiers were ill to 
be commanded, and more amenable when reduced to fair 
water. 

The arrival of the Marquis of Hamilton with 6000 men, 
raised chiefly in Scotland by an understanding with King 
Charles, did much to change the state of affairs. It 
brought the Landgrave of Hesse and the heroic Bernard of 
Saxe-Weimar to the Swedish standards, and it went far to 
confirm the wavering resolution of the more powerful 



78 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Elector of Saxony. In summer Munro and his men had 
begun to weary of the fleshpots of Old Brandenburg, more 
especially as a virulent epidemic had broken out in the 
town, when the whole Swedish army concentrated to move 
westward to observe the movements of Tilly. The fall of 
Frankfort had led to the sack of Magdeburg. Too late to 
relieve Frankfort, Tilly had turned back to revenge himself 
on that great and flourishing city. Then Gustavus followed 
westward to fortify himself, after his habit, at Werben 
on the Elbe, an admirable strategical position. Strong in 
his entrenchments, he repulsed a night attack with no little 
loss to the assailants. Then Tilly, who had been invariably 
the victor in innumerable pitched battles, marched back 
into Saxony to force the hand of the Elector, who was 
tampering with the Swedes. It was a fatal stroke of 
policy and strategy, and thenceforth fortune would seem 
to have deserted him. The superstitious Germans said he 
was haunted by the spirits of the helpless folk who had 
been mercilessly butchered at Magdeburg. The Elector, 
irritated by the cruelties inflicted on his country, threw 
himself into the arms of the Swedes, so Arnheim and his 
Saxons were aligned with them at the decisive battle of 
the Breitenfeld. 

Leipzic on the Breitenfeld was a duel between the fore- 
most champions of the conflicting creeds and policies. 
Tilly, as we see in his despatches, held Gustavus in the 
highest respect ; and the King, as wary in counsel as he 
was bold in action, knew well the formidable antagonist 
he had to face. But when the treaty with Saxony was 
signed, he felt bound to fight and arrest the ruthless course 
of the enemy. Tilly, it is said, though in far superior force, 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 79 

in his admiration of the mihtary genius of Gustavus, would 
have deferred the decisive moment. Yet probably the 
sympathies of the fiery old hero were with the impetuous 
Pappenheim and other lieutenants, who declared that with- 
drawing before inferior forces would be intolerable dis- 
grace. Once committed to the chances of combat, Tilly 
threw himself into it, heart and soul. He and his rival 
were ever in the forefront of battle, heading the cavalry 
onsets regardless of their lives, and that recklessness is the 
only charge that has been alleged against their skilful 
leadership. Gustavus, it is true, was quietly attired in a 
suit of plain grey under his corselet, though a long green 
plume floated from his helmet. But Tilly was conspicuous 
as always, with the dwarfish figure bent over the saddlebow, 
with the long drawn face and the drooping whiskers, in the 
suit of green satin, much the worse for wear, and the high- 
peaked hat with the drooping red feather. Never, indeed, 
throughout the war had field been more fiercely contested. 

The plain of Leipzic was ideal ground for skilful 
manoeuvring — for a fair fight and no favour. The armies 
had bivouacked within a mile of each other, and the lines 
of the opposing watchfires clearly defined the positions. 
Munro, whose old fires burned up as he wrote, describes 
with unusual animation and lucidity all of which he was 
an eye-witness. " As the larke beganne to peep," they 
were standing to arms, to the blare of the trumpet and the 
roll of the drum. Having meditated in the night and 
resolved with their consciences, they began the morning 
with offering souls and bodies as living sacrifices, with con- 
fession of their sins and lifting up hearts to Heaven by 
public prayers and secret sighs and groans. Thus shrieved 



8o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

and assoilzied in Protestant fashion, they marched forward 
a Httle and halted. The King bestirred himself in the 
ordering of the battle ; the Swedish host to his right, the 
Saxons to the left. In the forefront of the Swedish centre 
were three regiments, two of them Scottish, one Dutch, 
but all three under Scottish colonels. Munro was in com- 
mand of the musketeers of the right flank. Adopting his 
novel tactics, which proved disastrous to the Imperialists, 
Gustavus formed up his foot in open order, mingling them 
with squadrons of cavalry, so that the musket should 
support the pistol and sabre. It would seem more ques- 
tionable that before each brigade were batteries of heavy 
guns, and of the lighter artillery, which was loaded and 
fired fast, to the great discomfiture of the enemy. Behind 
were three brigades of reserve under Hepburn, which after- 
wards did decisive service to the left, when the day had 
been well-nigh lost by the flight of the raw Saxon levies. 

At "twelve of the clock" the battle was joined. The 
cannon began to roar, tearing great breaches through the 
advanced brigades, who, as Munro says, anticipating 
Beauregard's remark on Jackson, stood passive and firm 
as a wall for two hours and a half. Then out of the clouds 
of dust and smoke came furious charging of the Imperial 
reiters. Time after time they were met and forced back 
by the Swedish and Finnish horse, who with stolid northern 
phlegm never unloosed a pistol till the enemy had fired, 
after each discharge falling back behind the musketeers, 
who poured in their volleys at point blank. For a space 
the smoke and chalk clouds were so dense that nothing 
was to be distinguished. Then two great battalions of foot 
were seen on the left flank of the reserves, which most 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 8i 

supposed to be Saxons. Munro was more clear-sighted. 
" I certified his Majesty they were enemies ; " whereupon 
the King and Hepburn took the reserves to the left, to 
retrieve the doubtful fortunes of the day, and repulse the 
last desperate onset of the foe, recklessly led on by Tilly 
in person. Meanwhile Munro had led his wing of the 
musketeers against another body of the enemy who were 
standing firm by their batteries. He beat them from the 
cannon, which he captured, and consequently, as he says, 
remained master of the field, but the smoke-pall had come 
down thicker than ever, and he could see nothing of either 
friend or foe. So he caused a drummer to beat the " Scots' 
March " till it cleared, to collect surviving friends and scare 
away the scattering enemies. The battle being won, his 
Majesty did chiefly ascribe the glory to his Swedish horse- 
men and his Scottish foot. Indeed Munro seems to claim 
more than his fair share of it, for he says the victory and 
credit of the day was given to their brigade as being last 
engaged, and it had the royal thanks and promises of 
reward in public audience in presence of the whole army. 
Doubtless the thanks were paid down on the nail, but we 
hear nothing of the promises of reward being redeemed. 

That night they encamped on the field of battle, at 
blazing fires made of abandoned ammunition-waggons and 
pikes " that were cast away for want of good fellows to use 
them." Among the living was much merry-making and 
rejoicing, though there was a melancholy absence of drink 
at the night-wake of their dead comrades, which must have 
come home to the hearts of the Highlanders, who always 
celebrated obsequies with a carouse. 

Munro regrets that he missed by a day the storming 



82 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

of Marienburg, where his countrymen led the assault in 
what he describes as the most desperate service done in 
Dutchland during the whole continuance of the wars. 
After the Breitenfeldt, after investing Leipzic and occupy- 
ing Halle, his Majesty had been " minded to pay a visit " 
to his inveterate priestly enemies, the Bishops of Bamberg 
and Wiirtzburg. He marched to Erfurt through the 
Thuringenwald, and there broke up his army into two 
divisions, appointing Wiirtzburg as the rallying-place. The 
troops marching through Franconia were commanded by 
Lieutenant-General Bauditzen, with Hepburn as Brigadier- 
General. Coming to Wiirtzburg, they summoned the town, 
which surrendered on favourable terms. But the soldiers 
had withdrawn to the great Castle of Marienburg, which! 
as Dugald Dalgetty would have said, " overcrowed it," and 
which Munro describes emphatically as " a strong strength." 
It was deemed so strong indeed that the Prince-Bishop of 
Franconia had lodged his treasure there with an easy 
mind ; his wealthy subjects had followed his example, and 
in the wine-vaults hewn out of the living rock were stored 
the choicest vintages of the Steinberg. Nor was his con- 
fidence altogether misplaced, for Marienburg had been to 
Franconia what the impregnable Konigstein was to Saxony. 
Moreover, he had sure intelligence that Tilly and the Duke 
of Lorraine, with 50,000 men, were coming to the relief 
by forced marches. 

The castle was connected with the town by the massive 
bridge of grey antiquity, which, like that over the Moldau 
at Prague, is embellished by the statues of saints and 
saintly prelates. The retiring garrison had broken down 
one of the arches, and the gap was commanded and raked 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 83 

by the fire of the castle batteries. " A single, long, bending 
plank had been thrown over the broken arch, so that 
it seemed a hazard or torment to any man to pass over." 
" There were valorous officers and soldiers who would 
rather adventure to goe before the mouth of the cannon " 
than to cross that hair-like bridge of Al Sirat. But time 
pressed and the King had recourse to the Scots brigade. 
Sir James Ramsay, surnamed the Black, and Sir John 
Hamilton were called upon, the King knowing that if they 
refused, no others would undertake the service. They 
were commanded, with their musketeers, to effect the 
passage and clear a way to the castle for the rest of the 
army. The Scottish colonels went as warily as bravely to 
work ; with a few picked men they tumbled into some 
small boats — it much resembled Wellington's passage of 
the Douro — setting the musketeers to fire before they 
beached the boats. " Once happily landed and beginning 
to skirmish, their soldiers they left behinde, seeing their 
officers and comrades engaged, to helpe them they ranne 
over the planke so fast as they could runne, till at last 
they past all to make a strong head against the enemy." 
Ramsay was shot lame in the arm ; Hamilton succeeded 
to the command, pressing the garrison so hard at all points 
within their works that Gustavus passed most of his army 
over. Apparently the garrison was panic-stricken. Before 
dawn the place was rushed, for they had neither raised the 
drawbridges nor lowered the portcullis. Short shrift was 
given to the defenders : " Magdeburg quarter " was the 
answer to all appeals for mercy. 

The King had thrown out detachments on all sides till 
there were barely 10,000 men left at headquarters. At 



84 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

that time both Hepburn and Munro were in Wiirtzburg 
with the brigade. One evening Munro was seated com- 
fortably at supper, when a royal footman hurried upstairs 
to tell him his Majesty was waiting below. That evening 
a courier had come " bloody with spurring, fiery red with 
speed," to say that the Duke of Lorraine was at hand 
with five times the Swedish strength. The news was true, 
though the numbers were exaggerated. The King had 
come out at once to beat up Hepburn, but missing his 
quarters had stumbled on those of Munro. He ordered the 
Scot to get the brigade under arms at once, and to send 
Hepburn to meet him on the parade ground. Eight hundred 
musketeers mustered in the darkness and marched out on 
a blustering October night, neither Hepburn nor Munro 
having an idea of their destination. All they knew was 
that the King was riding alongside of them in gloomy 
abstraction, from which they augured that there was 
serious work before them. When he broke the silence it 
was to tell them that his purpose was to defend Ochsenfurt, 
the Franconian Oxford, by help of their handful of 
musketeers against Lorraine and his army. Eighty troopers 
were in advance, and towards the small hours the weary 
foot-soldiers were in position on the bridge or lying by 
their arms in Ochsenfurt market-place. At break of day 
a scouting party of the cavalry were driven back by a 
squadron of the Imperialists. A company of the musketeers 
sent off in support had to retire with the horse before over- 
whelming numbers. Then Munro led out a hundred more, 
and delivered the attack with " such a noise of drums " 
and so determined a spirit that the Imperialists believed 
he had the Swedish army at his back and beat a retreat 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 85 

in their turn. They had better information soon, and 
Hepburn, unsupported, was in extreme anxiety. All that 
man could do he did to defend the ruined walls and their 
approaches ; he threw down houses, he felled trees, and 
grubbed hedges; he improvised loopholed stockades with 
firing platforms behind them. It was a case " where no 
cavalier could gain credit without overmuch hazard, yet 
such a master would be served." The enemy waited too 
long. On the third night there was such a noise of their 
trumpets and drums, as if heaven and earth were going 
together : no one doubted that a general storm was 
imminent : the gates were even closed against the horse- 
guards who had been beaten in against the walls ; which 
shows how desperate the situation was deemed by such a 
cool veteran as Hepburn. Then he was delivered by some 
unexplained miracle from the very jaws of destruction. 
The host of the Imperialists was smitten by such a panic 
as scared the Assyrians from the siege of Samaria. When 
Hepburn looked out in the belated November dawn, they 
were vanishing in clouds of dust which veiled their retiring 
on Nuremberg. 

Campaigning in those times was not only a game of 
hazard, but also a game of luck, which was perhaps not 
the least of its chief attractions. You might be ordered to 
run your head against almost impracticable stoneworks, 
or sent to overrun a rich country, relatively defenceless. 
After Marienburg and Ochsenfurt the Scotch brigade 
separated. Two hundred of them under Colonel Hanan, " a 
discreet cavalier of good command and conduct, also 
valorous," were sent down the Main well provided with 
field guns, to reduce all the castles as they went along. 



86 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

None of those somewhat neglected fortresses gave much 
trouble, and they rejoined their comrades laden with booty. 
Munro's division was also fortunate, though he leaves us 
to infer the looting, and for once they were revelling in the 
fulness of plenty. In his grateful moralising he waxes 
eloquent : " This march being profitable as it was pleasant 
to the eye, we see that soldiers have not always so hard a 
life as the common opinion is ; for sometimes as they have 
abundance, so they have a variety of pleasure, in marching 
softly, without feare or danger, through fertill soyles and 
pleasant countries, their marches being more like a king's 
progress than to wars ; being in a fat land as this was, 
abounding in all things except peace : they had plenty of 
corn, fruite, wine, gold, silver, jewels, and of all sort of 
riches that could be thought of, on this river of the Maine." 
Had Frankfort set them at defiance — and for a time the 
issue was doubtful — he might have had stiU better reason 
for gratulation. But Frankfort, "made wise by the ruine 
of other cities," preferred good conditions of peace to the 
chances of storm and sack. All those wealthy free cities 
held troubled consultations when the royal Swede sent 
peremptory summons to surrender. Their sympathies were 
with him, with freedom and with Protestantism, but they 
consulted under terror of the Tillys and Wallensteins. 

With Frankfort in his possession and his communica- 
tions assured, the King could turn his attention to another 
of his inveterate Episcopal enemies. The strong places on 
the lower Rhine were in the Electorate of Mayence, and 
thither he directed his march. It was occupied by a corps 
of veteran Spaniards, under Don Phillipe de Sylvia, who 
held, -the fortresses on the river in force. As his troops were 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 87 

well sheltered, de Sylvia trusted something besides to the 
inclemency of a bitter winter. Summoned to retire or 
surrender, his answer was short ; his orders were to defend 
the Prince Bishop against the Swedes. As he fancied, he 
had seized all the river craft, but it was difficult to sweep 
all shipping off the long course of the Rhine. Gustavus 
himself had made a detour through the Bergstrasse, with 
the exiled King of Bohemia, the banished Elector Palatine 
in his train, and meditated a crossing above Sylvia's 
most formidable advanced post at Oppenheim. A few 
small boats were picked up by Count Brahe, who was in 
command of a mixed brigade of Scots and Swedes. He 
made a miraculous crossing in face of a watchful enemy, 
reminding one again of Wellington's passage of the Douro, 
and entrenching himself promptly in similar fashion, re- 
pulsed with heavy loss the onsets of the Spanish cavalry. 
The routed horsemen sought refuge at Oppenheim, an 
ancient town with walls and fosses and a massive castle 
dominating the Rhine. Strongly garrisoned and scientifi- 
cally fortified, Oppenheim barred the march to Mayenne. 
The hardest nut to crack was a sconce on the right bank 
of the Rhine, covered by the castle fire, and the sconce has 
become historically famous. The Scots, as Munro remarks, 
went to the front as usual, when there was any desperate 
piece of service to be done. Grim and bloody as the busi- 
ness was, his quaint fashion of telling the story puts it in 
a humorous point of view. It was a bitterly severe winter, 
" but we lay down in the fields, having no shelter but 
some bushes on the bank of the river." The bivouac was 
raked by the castle batteries ; it was all a dead level, and 
there was no protection of any kind. " The cannon from 



88 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the castle did cleanse and secure the fields about the 
sconce, and on the other side they plagued us still with 
cannon." It behoved them to have fires, but when the 
fires were kindled, the cannonade grew hotter and the aim 
more sure. Then we have a touch of Charles O'Malley's 
Peninsular compaigning. " One night, sitting at supper, a 
bullet of 32 lbs. weight shot tight out between Col. 
Hepburn's shoulder and mine, going through the Colonel's 
couch ; the next shot killed a sergeant of mine by the fire, 
smoking a pipe of tobacco." That night the enemy made 
an outfall, " which was bravely repulsed by push of pike, 
slightly esteeming of the musket and scorning to use ours." 
When the King opened his approaches on the other side 
of the castle, the sconce surrendered, and shortly after- 
wards the garrison of the castle had a disagreeable surprise. 
In some strange fashion a " privy passage " had been left 
unguarded. Two hundred of Ramsay's Scots had been 
guided to the outworks, which they carried by storm and 
fought their way into the heart of the defences. It was a 
long and desperate struggle, for the odds were great against 
the storming party, and the garrison disputed each inch 
of ground. All the time the town bells were tolling at 
intervals, and the roar of the Swedish batteries dominated 
the sounds of the combat. But before Gustavus could 
hurry forward the supports, Ramsay and his handful of 
musketeers were masters of the place. Many prisoners 
were taken in the sconce and the castle. Then occurred 
one of the common incidents of the war, when soldiers 
ransomed themselves lightly by changing sides. " Their 
colours being taken from them, they, willing to take service, 
were all disponed by his Majesty to Sir John Hepburn, 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 89 

who was not only a Colonel to them but a kind patron, 
putting them in good quarters till they were well armed 
and clad again. But their unthankfulness was such that 
they stayed not, but disbandoned all in Beyerland, for 
having once got the warm ayre of the summer, they were 
all gone before winter." 

Mayence was taken. The Spaniards had pillaged the 
place before capitulating, and the Swedes laid it under 
heavy contributions. There the conqueror celebrated 
Christmas with ten or a dozen of the Princes of the Empire 
and many ambassadors from friendly states. Thence de- 
tachments of his troops overran the Rheingau and all the 
modern tourist country ; the vintages of Bingen, Bacharach, 
and Coblenz were at the mercy of the victors, and Munro 
himself was quartered at Bingen with a picket in Bishop 
Hatto's historical Mausethurm. The armies of Gustavus 
were victorious everywhere, and the chronicler complacently 
gives a long list of " the many worthy cavaliers of our 
nation," who were not only trusted before others with 
governments, but also honoured with the commanding of 
strangers. 

There was a single exception. Tilly, after giving a 
check to Horn, had been mustering an army for the defence 
of Bavaria. The King, who never rested himself or gave 
the enemy time to repose, now marched for the Danube. 
Hepburn of the Scots Brigade was his right-hand man, as 
the irresistible advance rolled southward through Fran- 
conia. On the march they were reinforced by strong 
bodies of cavalry under the chivalrous Bernhardt of Saxe- 
Weimar. There was some sharp fighting with the veteran 
de Bouquoi, who was routed with loss and severely wounded. 



90 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

On the 26th of March they sighted the Danube at Donau- 
worth, the key to Swabia, and with the fortified mountain 
of the Schellenberg a position deemed almost impregnable, 
which was to play a conspicuous part in the campaigns of 
Marlborough and Eugene. It was gallantly defended by 
the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, but was taken, sacked, and 
spoiled. So says Munro, who was foremost in the storm 
with his musketeers. Many of the garrison were slain, 
many more drowned in the river, and the rest " who got 
their lives were forced to take service in the regiments." 
But the Swedes did not gain much by those involuntary 
recruits. " Being papists of Bavaria, as soon as they smelt 
the smell of their father's houses, in less than ten days 
they were all gone." 

Then the Swedes would have broken into Bavaria, but 
old Tilly was defending the passage of the Lech. With a 
tremendous artillery fire from the opposing field batteries, 
for a day and a half the passage was disputed ; the 
Bavarians blanched as the raw Saxons had done at Leipzic, 
but Tilly's veterans manfully stood their ground, and 
possibly the issue of the battle might have been different 
had not Tilly " been shot in the knee with a cannon bullet, 
a cruel blow for an old man of seventy-two." The old hero 
was carried off to die at Ingolstadt, and then the chances 
of the Imperialists were gone. The death he would have 
desired spared him the mortification of learning that he 
was to be superseded by the Duke of Friedland. Munro, 
who could respect a valiant enemy, ranks him only second 
to the immortal Gustavus. " Wherein we have a notable 
example of an old, expert general, who being seventy-two 
years of age was ready to die in defence of his rehgion and 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 91 

country, . . . which end of his should encourage all brave 
cavaliers to follow his example both in life and in death, as 
with valorous soldiers. . . , And my wish were I might 
prove as valiant in advancing Christ's kingdom as he was 
in hindering it." 

Augsburg, Ingolstadt, and all the fortified Bavarian 
cities fell fast one after another. When the citizens sur- 
rendered the garrisons got quarter, but elsewhere seldom 
during that merciless war was the warfare more ruthlessly 
waged. The peasants, who were bigoted Catholics to a 
man, not only murdered all stragglers, but subjected them 
to nameless tortures. By way of reprisals defenceless 
Bavarians were shot down without mercy, and their un- 
walled towns and villages given to the flames. So when 
the army approached the Bavarian capital, commissioners 
were sent out with the keys, " offering all kind of sub- 
mission, for to spare from plundering of their city." His 
Majesty encamped his army outside the town, but trusted 
the guard of the gates and the market-place to Hepburn 
and the Scots, till he should make his formal entry next 
day. He housed himself in the palace, having for his 
guest the Elector Palatine whom Maximilian at the 
beginning of the war had hunted out of the Haradschin. 
The Duke before his flight had rather innocently buried 
his cannon. Inevitably, they were discovered and dug up. 
Munro declares there were 140 of them : twelve great 
pieces had been christened the twelve apostles. The 
Palatine recognised many of his own ; others had been 
brought from Brunswick, and there was one charged with 
30,000 golden ducats, though it seems strange that that 
portable property had not been carried off. While Munich 



92 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

was in occupation of the troops Hepburn, in appreciation 
of his services, was appointed military governor, with strict 
orders to preserve disciphne and prevent looting. But the 
occupation did not last long, for news from the north-east 
suddenly recalled the Swedish King to central Germany. 

The next act in the bloody drama is the famous siege 
of Nuremberg. Munro expresses no opinion as to the 
strategy of his idol, though that was the turning-point of 
the hitherto ever- victorious advance. Two great military 
geniuses were matched against each other, and for Gustavus 
it was something worse than a drawn game. Nuremberg 
had hesitated between two terrors, but had been driven to 
a decision. As a Protestant free city, all its sympathies 
were with the foreigners. It " made up twenty-four strong 
companies of foot," who carried on their colours as many 
letters of the alphabet. The King having " recognosced " the 
city, formed an encircling leaguer with sconces, redoubts, 
fosses, and barriers. Wallenstein, occupying the southern 
heights, had thrown up corresponding works over against 
them. Necessity has no law, and the foraging Swedes were 
almost as merciless as the more lawless and licentious 
Imperialists. The boors began to be unquiet and tumul- 
tuous. " But this uproar was but short, for when the 
Swedens drew out of the garrisons they killed the most 
part, and drove the rest into woods to seek their food 
with the swine, in burning a number of their dorpes." 
Then Munro breaks into one of his digressions to pay a 
generous tribute to Pappenheim, who was causing them 
infinite anxiety. " The Earle of Pappenheim, a worthy 
brave fellow, though he was our enemy, his valour and 
resolution I deemed so much of that it does me good to 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 93 

call his vertuous actions somewhat to memory and the 
successes he had in warlike employs. . . . This noble 
cavalier was so generous that nothing seemed difficult to 
him, fearing nothing, not death itself." 

It is needless to recapitulate the familiar story of the 
fighting before the beleaguered city, but it brought Munro 
promotion in a way he would never have desired, for it 
was to sever him temporarily from a valued friend. 
Gustavus, whose temper must have been tried by the 
protracted siege and the impregnable Imperial positions, 
quarrelled with Hepburn, and apparently for no particular 
reason. Schiller says that Hepburn resented the King's 
having preferred a subordinate to some post of danger, 
which would have been really a tribute to the value of the 
fire-proof veteran. More plausibly it is attributed to an 
insult to the Brigadier's religion, for Hepburn was a devout 
Christian and a Catholic. Be that as it may, the King 
used language which could not be brooked by the high- 
spirited Scot, who left the apartment with his hand on his 
sword-hilt, exclaiming, " I will never unsheathe it again in 
the service of Sweden." He did not immediately quit the 
camp, and his Royal master appealed to him once again, 
and not in vain, in a moment of emergency, but Munro, 
with the rank of colonel, succeeded in command of the 
brigade. 

Shortly afterwards he was invalided. At the storm of 
the Altenburg, a bullet took him above the haunch-bone, 
and he was only saved from death by the " iron-clicker " 
of his hanger. The King took an affectionate leave of him 
as he lay in hospital at Donauworth ; they never met 
again, and he shared neither the dangers nor honours of 



94 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Lutzen. There is real pathos and deep feehng in his elegy 
over the loss of such a leader as he could never hope to 
follow again. " This magnanimous King for his valour 
might well have been called the magnifique King : ... he 
died standing, serving the public, . . . and he most will- 
ingly gave up the ghost, being all his life a King that feared 
God and walked uprightly in his calling, and as he lived 
Christianly, so he died most happily in the defence of the 
truth. I could take Heaven and Earth, Sun and IVioou, 
minerals, &c., to witness that his colours ever flourished in 
the name of the Lord, and that his confidence was not set 
on the arm of man." Reverting to the subject, he sums 
up the pages afterwards by praying for such another leader 
as that invincible King. He can hardly have expected that 
the prayer would be answered, and after the idol he had 
worshipped was gone, his Memoirs may be briefly summed 
up. Though the shattered and enfeebled Scots Brigade was 
left " to rest " in Swabia, it was ever on active duty. 
Munro went to Scotland to enlist recruits, and recruits 
came over in considerable numbers. But the regiments 
again suffered severely at the disastrous battle of Nord- 
lingen, where the Swedes were routed and Home taken 
prisoner. Munro's brigade was terribly cut up, nor did it 
ever recover the losses. The peace of Miinster closed the 
Thirty Years' War. After Nordlingen the Scottish regi- 
ments had been under the command of Bernhardt of Saxe- 
Weimar, and when the agreement was signed between 
Sweden and France, his troops were taken into the pay of 
France. Hepburn had unsheathed his sword in the service 
of Louis, and Munro was again under his old comrade. 
Munro's own regiment had been reduced to a single com- 



HEPBURN AND MUNRO 95 

pany, and the remains of thirteen gallant Scotch corps 
which had fought under Gustavus in many a stricken field, 
were incorporated in the regiment d'Hebron, which by 
orders of the King was to rank before all others in the 
French service. Hebron, it may be explained, was the 
French rendering of Hepburn. 

Munro's " Expedition " ends somewhat abruptly with 
the " Observation," among others, that the disciphne of his 
regiment stood so high that many who were trained in it 
rose " from soldiers to be inferior officers, and then from 
their preferments and advancements " were promoted to 
other regiments. Even their enemies, he adds, could not 
but duly praise them, calling them the invincible old regi- 
ment, and the Swedes were wont to strike terror into their 
enemies by borrowing their battle-music and imitating the 
Highland cheer. 



IV 

COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN 

Though " the Lion of the North and the Bulwark of the 
Protestant faith had a way of winning battles, taking 
towns, &c., which made his service irresistibly delectable 
to all true-bred cavaliers," the discipline was severe, the 
pay small and precarious, and the promotion slow. It was 
not often that an inferior officer dropped into such a good 
thing as Rittmaster Dalgetty when he commanded the 
whole stift of Dunklespiel. The Imperial service offered 
greater attractions to cavaliers of fortune, especially when 
they had left their consciences at home. There was 
Wallenstein, a living proof of what military talent and 
soaring ambition might attain to, and Tilly and Pappenheim 
were scarcely less famous. Did they want wealth, as they 
all did, had not Wallenstein within a few years of making 
his mark bought landed estates to the value of 8,000,000 
florins. Yet he had long been maintaining the pomp of 
a Court and had given away as freely as he gathered. The 
secret was that soldiers of all ranks lived on contributions 
levied on the country. Gustavus, with only the scanty 
Swedish treasury to draw upon, from policy was bound to 
conciliate the states he overran and to respect the privi- 
leges and purses of the wealthy free cities. The Im- 
perialists and the soldiers of the CathoHc League cast all 

96 



COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN 97 

such scruples to the wind. Like Napoleon, they made the 
war support itself, but then it was Germans who preyed 
upon Germans, When Wallenstein, recalled into the field, 
sent his summons around for a second army, as when 
Bourbon raised his standard after Pavia, adventurers 
flocked to him from all quarters. As Mitchell remarks, 
they knew the terrible severity of his punishments, but 
they also knew how magnificent were his rewards. In his 
own camp the discipline was strict, and any breach of it 
was summarily punished, but that was due rather to pride 
than principle. Personally he set the worst possible 
example. Nothing can be more damning, or more illus- 
trative of the misery of the provinces he had ravaged, than 
the charges brought against him by the Bavarian Elector 
and the Electoral College of Ratisbon. They were sub- 
scribed alike by Catholic and Protestant. They told how 
the Duke of Friedland in Pomerania had exhausted the 
revenues of the Duchy in keeping open house ; they told 
of plundering and fire-raising ; of men beaten, tortured, 
and murdered ; of women violated ; and they wound up : 
" Turks and heathens have never behaved as the Imperial 
troops have done, nor could the devils have behaved 
worse." 

Wallenstein had drained Pomerania to keep a sumptuous 
table when the Pomeranians were starving, and his officers 
in their degree imitated or surpassed his example when 
charged with local responsibility and released from restraint. 
The ordinary adventurer pillaged and squandered from 
hand to mouth ; the more prudent or avaricious turned 
the screw that they might save against the day of their 
discharge ; and between the two the citizens were ruth- 



98 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

lessly fleeced and the helpless peasantry burned out and 
beggared. But there were men of birth, breeding, and 
talent, with broader views and definite ambitions. De- 
liberately careless of their lives and free of their money, 
they took Wallenstein or Pappenheim for their models, and 
hoped to rise like them. Soldiers first, they could be 
courtiers on occasion, and at Vienna or Munich some happy 
chance might give them rapid promotion and the pay of the 
colonel of a regiment. Once well on the ladder they were 
fairly safe, unless tripped up by some court intrigue or the 
caprice of a court beauty. 

The soldier of fortune when he had seen something of 
the wars was seldom more scrupulous than Rittmaster 
Dalgetty over his war cry. When he left his native islands 
he was generally influenced by religion or home politics, 
and he enlisted on the side whither friends had gone before 
him. The Catholic Irish had no hesitation ; to a man they 
followed the standards of the Church and the Empire. 
The Scottish Presbyterians from the far North, like Munro, 
cast in their lot with Swedish Lutherans and German 
Calvinists, and at least so long as Gustavus lived they 
seldom changed their colours. But though in Aberdeen- 
shire there were Forbeses, Frasers, and many others who 
were staunch to the blue of the Covenant, in the Gordon 
country and the Garioch the most of the gentry were High 
Church, High Tory — the epithet had not been invented 
then — and often Catholic. In the heart of the Garioch, 
" at the back o' Benachie," as the old song has it, stands 
one of the square, bartizaned towers scattered broadcast 
over Aberdeenshire, memorials of the days when every 
man's hand was against his nearest neighbours. The 



COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN 99 

Leslies of Balquhain, who claimed to be heads of the name, 
had always been a fighting family. Poor as they were 
proud, it was only natural that a younger son, with little 
but his sword for an inheritance, should seek honour and 
fortune abroad. The Leslies were bred in prelatic sur- 
roundings, and it is singular that Walter, associated with 
a Gordon in the death of Wallenstein, should, like Gordon, 
have been bred a Calvinist, Judging by the subsequent 
careers of both, it is probable that religious tenets sat 
lightly upon them. None could have foreseen that the 
penniless youth who left the Garioch to trail a halberd in 
the ranks would have played the leading part in the death 
of the great captain, gone with the collar of the Golden 
Fleece as imperial ambassador to the Sultan, married the 
well-dowered daughter of a princely house, and died a 
Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Of all the foreign 
soldiers he had the most exceptional luck. 

He left no autobiography, and the records of his rapid 
rise are fragmentary. Here and there some deed of daring 
or decision, some subtle piece of courtiership or sagacious 
stroke of policy, stands out conspicuous in the history of 
the war. He served in Flanders, where he saw hard fight- 
ing. He won his way to carrying a fahne or ensign's 
colours in Italy in the war of the Mantuan succession. He 
distinguished himself with the Imperialists in Germany, and 
in 1632, when only twenty-six, was already major of 
musketeers. The regiment was chiefly Scottish with a 
sprinkling of Irish, and was commanded by the Colonel 
Gordon who played second to his subordinate in the 
Wallenstein tragedy. Both were special favourites of 
Wallenstein, who for his own sake knew how to appreciate 



loo SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

and advance merit. Both had been always to the front 
in the campaign which drove the Saxons back over the 
Riesengebirge. Both were in the great camp where 
Wallenstein had gathered all his strength for the capture 
of the free city of Nuremberg. Swedes and Imperialists 
were alike on short commons ; their foragers swept all the 
adjacent country. Wallenstein had cut off a convoy 
escorting 200 waggons from Wiirtzburg. Things were 
getting desperate with the citizens and the Swedes, when 
Gustavus ordered an attack in force on an imperial 
magazine, and detached a covering force of 1000 musketeers 
and 800 horse to Bergtheim. James Grant, in his " Life of 
Hepburn," gives a spirited account of the affair. There was 
a sanguinary engagement between the covering force and 
the Imperialists under Sparre. The Imperialists were in 
superior strength, but the Swedish attack was irresistible. 
The action was fought out among rocks and ruins. 
" The imperial regiments were swept away in succession, 
and the musketeers of Gordon and Leslie alone stood 
firm, maintaining their posts behind every tree, rock, and 
wall with the most steady gallantry. Gustavus frequently 
applauded their valour, and declared that if these were 
Scots and fell into his hands as prisoners, he would release 
them unransomed." They yielded to numbers, and he 
kept his word, though his Scottish officers were slow to 
carry out his orders. For five weeks they feted and feasted 
their countrymen, and at last gave them reluctant license 
to depart, when Gustavus made his final cast for victory. 

When the Lion of the North had fallen at Liitzen, 
Leslie was in quarters at Egra on the western frontier of 
Bohemia. It had been better for his fame had he been 



COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN loi 

elsewhere, but assuredly the supreme episode of the war 
found him at the crisis of his fortunes. The problem of 
Wallenstein's guilt or innocence is as little likely to be ever 
certainly solved as that of the identity of the man of the 
iron mask. There was no room then for two emperors. 
The situation was becoming impossible. Wallenstein, 
emphatically the soldier of fortune, had served himself in 
serving his master. He had raised himself a host of jealous 
enemies, headed and inspired by Maximilian of Bavaria. 
The immense rewards, at first bestowed by gratitude, had 
latterly been extorted by force or fear. He had dictated 
his own conditions when he had come to the imperial rescue 
the second time, and his overweening pretensions had never 
been forgiven. His sagacity warned him that he was 
doomed, and there is little doubt he had sought to make 
himself friends in the hostile camps, and had been intriguing 
with Swedes and Saxons, who naturally mistrusted his 
advances. There is written evidence of flattering offers 
from France ; Richelieu corresponded with him, and Louis 
had written a letter under his own hand. Soldier of 
fortune in excelsis, when he had stripped the Dukes of 
Friedland of their hereditary dukedom he would scarcely 
have hesitated to rob his ungrateful master of Bohemia. 
He had become a danger and a terror, yet it was not 
possible to arrest him at the head of an army he had raised, 
who looked to him for pay in arrear, and who had rallied 
to him in solemn assurance of pillage. As he could not be 
sent to the block, and as no cage would hold such a bird, 
the only alternative was to remove him by violence. 

As times were, policy might have justified the deed, and 
the Church would have readily absolved the Kaiser ; but 



I02 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Leslie, whom he had loved, enriched, and advanced, was 
not the man to deal with his confiding benefactor. Accord- 
ing to Schiller, " it was to Leslie Wallenstein confided his 
griefs and embarrassments when he had decided to cross 
the Rubicon and fly from the imperial dominions." Had 
Leslie acted simply as a soldier, obeying the orders of the 
Emperor as supreme in command, he might have saved 
something of his reputation by waiting patiently for his 
reward. In that case he would probably have gone without 
it, and like Wallenstein he was the soldier-adventurer who 
snatched at every cliance. At Egra, Gordon, his colonel, 
seems to have hesitated when Butler disclosed the murder- 
ous and treacherous plan. Leslie had made up his mind at 
once, and if he was not one of the actual assassins of his 
great patron, he scoured the streets with a covering party 
while the crime was being perpetrated. Then, even antici- 
pating his Irish accomplice, Butler, he rode post-haste to 
the Burg in Vienna, carrying the welcome news. For never 
was messenger more welcome. The delighted Kaiser 
showered immediate rewards upon him, and took sundry 
public occasions of showing him honour. He was made 
Imperial Chamberlain, Colonel of two regiments, Captain 
of the Bodyguard ; he was created at once a Count of the 
Empire, and enriched with estates in Bohemia valued at 
200,000 or 300,000 florins. 

In lavishly rewarding that timely piece of service, the 
Emperor had found a faithful and valuable servant. The 
honours so suddenly heaped upon Leslie were only the 
foretaste of others to follow, and these he well deserved. 
Thenceforth he is one of the most conspicuous figures of 
the time, and so far as we know, his honour thenceforth 



COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN 103 

was unblemished. Courage he had in excess, but he was 
no ordinary soldier. He had brains and courteous manners 
as well as reckless daring, and distinguished himself in 
diplomacy and civil affairs as in sieges, storms, and cam- 
paigns. At the bloody battle of Nordlingen, having escaped 
death by a miracle, he was recompensed by the Cardinal 
Infant of Spain with a generous largesse in money, as was 
the fashion of the time, and with the lucrative ownership 
of two other regiments. He raised his reputation and 
increased his riches in the campaigns in Alsace, Saxony, 
and Bohemia. Then that versatile genius turned diplomat, 
financier, and money agent. In 1645 he was successfully 
negotiating loans for the needy Emperor in Rome and 
Naples, and then returning to military avocations he rose 
through a plurality of posts, as Master of the Ordnance, Vice- 
President of the War-Council, and Warden of the Sclavonic 
Marches. He had the rank of Field-Marshal besides, and 
was a leading member of the Privy Council. 

In 1665 the fortunate Scottish cadet was a Knight 
of the princely Order of the Golden Fleece, and charged 
with an embassy to the Court of Constantinople for 
the ratification of the treaty of peace. The embassy 
was sent out with all the state and splendour fitted to 
impress the Oriental imagination. The Field-Marshal was 
attended by a magnificent suite, and accompanied by 
Howard, his intimate friend, heir presumptive to the 
premier dukedom of England. He was escorted down the 
Danube to the Turkish fortress of Belgrade by a flotilla of 
superbly decorated barges, and thence the rugged passes of 
the Balkans were crossed to Stamboul in an endless pro- 
cession of torches. The journey, with all its adventitious 



I04 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

luxury, must have reminded him of some of his roughest 
campaigning, but legions of peasants and serfs were sum- 
moned to cut or clear a road over the hills and through the 
forests. The reception on the Bosphorus of the cadet of 
Balquhain was befitting the scale of the embassage and the 
value of the presents he brought. The Sultan paid the 
highest honours to the imperial envoy, nor when he left was 
he sent away empty-handed. Unfortunately he brought 
back with him as well the seeds of a mortal illness, and next 
year (1666) he closed his career in the Kaiserstadt. Bred a 
Calvinist, he had seen the error of his ways, for he recanted 
after the assassination of Wallenstein, and he died a good 
Catholic on the 3rd November 1667. He was interred with 
great pomp and all military honours in the Abbey of the 
Scottish Benedictines. 



PRINCE EUGENE 

Eugene of Savoy may be fairly styled a soldier of fortune, 
for though ever constant to the colours under which he 
entered on his military career, like an illustrious con- 
temporary, the Duke of Berwick, he abandoned the land 
of his birth to win fame and fortune by the sword. The 
story of his career would fill volumes ; there is matter in it, 
not only for the student of the art of war, but for the 
romancist delighting in sensation and adventure. Yet the 
most meagre sketch shows a typical leader of the times, 
throwing side-lights on the changes in camps, courts, and 
campaigning since the close of the Thirty Years' War had 
given temporary peace to Europe. Eugene was a link 
between the past and the present ; he was the preux 
chevalier, the Edler Ritter, of the imperial camp songs which 
found responsive echo from the hostile lines. A mediaeval 
knight and modern general bom with the genius of war, 
in qualities he was the complement of his colleague Marl- 
borough in the decisive battles of his time. 

A scion of the house of Savoy, his grandfather had been 
more a soldier of fortune than himself. Thomas Francis, 
youngest son of the then Duke of Savoy, " of restless 
temperament and great political and military ability," 
constant to no cause and only consulting his own interests, 



io6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

had finally settled in France. The founder of the branch 
of Carignan had married a Bourbon, heiress of the last 
Count of Soissons. His younger son, Eugene Maurice, took 
his uncle's title of Count of Soissons, was naturalised as a 
Frenchman, and had the honours of a prince of the blood. 
The easy-going Prince, a courtier and complaisant husband, 
married one of the most turbulent and ambitious women 
of a time when feminine Court intrigue was swaying Court 
policy. The love affairs of the beautiful Olympia Mancini, 
the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, and of the young and hot- 
blooded King, are matters of history and of romance as well ; 
Dumas, in the prelude to the " Vicomte de Bragelonne," 
has described the love-making on the banks of the Loire. 
Olympia missed the crown she had set her heart upon, and 
never altogether forgave her royal adorer, though, with 
alternate interludes of war and peace, there were intervals 
in which she ruled his Court and led the fashions. There 
was a final fall from favour on the rise of Louise de la 
Valli^re, and on that occasion, by forging a letter from 
Spain, the Countess gave offence which was never forgiven. 
She and her husband were banished to their estates, a 
command equivalent to social extinction. The death of 
her husband drove her to despair. Not that she greatly 
regretted him, but she lost the revenues of his government 
of Champagne, found her means inconveniently straitened, 
and saw the prospects of her children gravely compromised. 
She gave herself license to return to Paris, but although 
it was tolerated her presence was ignored. In desperation 
she took to consulting soothsayers and the wizards who 
peeped and who muttered. She went farther, and un- 
doubtedly entered into relations with those notorious women, 



PRINCE EUGENE 107 

Voisin and the traders in crime. She may have sought 
only philtres and charms, but it was said she became an 
expert in deadly poisons, and among other crimes laid to 
her charge was the subsequent poisoning of the French 
Queen of Spain at the instigation of the Imperial Am- 
bassador. The question of her guilt or innocence is a 
mystery that can never be cleared up ; most reliable writers 
are inclined to acquit her ; the author of the preface to 
Eugene's own brief memoirs condemns her without hesi- 
tation or reserve. It is certain she fled from France to 
Flanders to escape a process instituted against her and a 
lettre de cachet for the Bastille. So there are different 
versions of the story of her retreat to Brussels and her 
residence there. One avers that she kept open salon for 
all that was most select in the society of Flanders ; another 
that, reduced to greater straits than ever, she was grateful 
to her kinsman, the Due de Mazarin, for an occasional dole 
of a few score of louis. 

Be the truth as it may, she bequeathed to her sons a 
tarnished name and the royal dislike to the family. They 
were left behind in Paris on her precipitate flight, and 
Louis seems to have regarded them with mingled feelings. 
As acknowledged princes of the blood, they had a claim 
to a certain recognition, nevertheless he was inclined to 
cross and spite them. Eugene, the third and the youngest, 
was imperiously destined to the Church. The young abbe, 
as he was somewhat sarcastically styled by the great King, 
was gratified in boyhood with clerical endowments, and 
might have counted on a plurality of lucrative benefices 
with archiepiscopal mitres and a cardinal's hat in reversion. 
But if ever a boy had a vocation, it was the young Eugene, 



io8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

and his tastes did not incline to the soutane or the breviary. 
He was born a soldier and a soldier he meant to be. As 
his predilections were all for the profession of arms, he 
seems to have taken his own education in charge. He 
was always studying military treatises or immersed in the 
biographies of the heroes he admired. To mathematics and 
engineering science he paid special attention, and it was 
an age when the engineer was in the ascendant and the 
fortress the pivot of the campaign. Nor did he neglect 
to exercise his slight but active person in all sorts of 
athletic exercises. The time came when he passed out of 
the tutelage of tutors and governors. He took his courage 
in his hands and sought an audience of the royal autocrat. 
Thanking him for all the favours bestowed or intended, he 
begged instead for a place in the army befitting his rank. 
The request was peremptorily refused in scornful terms ; 
and Louis, generally so sagacious in selecting capable 
officers, seldom made a more fatal mistake. Eugene in 
the Memoirs, which only begin with his arrival at Vienna, 
says nothing of the matter. In reaUty his fiery tempera- 
ment boiled over ; he remembered the griefs of his mother 
and the slights inflicted on his family, and his decision 
was made on the spur of the moment. The man who 
might have done more than any other to forward the 
French monarch's far-reaching schemes became one of the 
most unflinching enemies of France and the most for- 
midable champions of European liberties. 

Eugene was then a youth of nineteen. He was some- 
what below the middle height, with the olive Italian com- 
plexion, refined features, a somewhat retrousse nose, and a 
short upper lip which, displaying his teeth, was apt to give 



PRINCE EUGENE 109 

an unfavourable impression at first sight ; but all was re- 
deemed by the bright flashing eyes which softened easily 
into genial smiles or blazed when lit up with the fire of 
battle. Once decided to turn his back on the land of his 
birth, he had little hesitation as to where to seek a career. 
The ambition of Louis had troubled the peace of nations, 
and Europe was ranging itself in hostile camps, headed 
respectively by the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs. An 
elder brother of Eugene had gone already to place his 
sword at the disposal of the Emperor : he had been well 
received, and immediately presented with a regiment. 
Eugene resolved to follow the example. The Chevalier de 
Soissons had had a gracious reception, but the welcome of 
Eugene was even more cordial, for Leopold from the first 
took a strong liking to him. Political considerations, be- 
sides, were strong recommendations. Eugene was a near 
kinsman of the house of Savoy, and in the wars between 
France and the Empire the Dukes played a conspicuous 
part, and not infrequently swayed the balance. Seated 
upon the crests of the Western Alps, they locked the passes 
which led from France into Italy. In subsequent campaigns 
that cousinship of Eugene was eminently serviceable to 
the Empire, though it landed himself in embarrassments 
which went far to compromise his operations. The reign- 
ing Duke was a gallant soldier who never shirked fighting, 
and who might have been as honourable as he was brave 
in less difficult circumstances. As it was, under pressure 
from Versailles he passed from double-dealing to actual 
treachery, and had it not been for very shame, would have 
taken a more active part against the kinsman he betrayed 
when he had come to his help in the Duke's extremity. 



no SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Eugene's noble birth helped him at least as much as 
his genius and his courage. Times had changed since the 
Thirty Years' War, when a simple Bohemian gentleman 
overshadowed the Emperor, defying the open enmity of the 
Elector of Bavaria, and when a soldier of fortune from the 
Low Countries became the leader of the Catholic League. 
Towards the close of the seventeenth century blood and 
birth counted for everything. The contingents who swelled 
the motley armies of the allies were commanded by their 
own princes, who stood punctiliously upon precedence and 
the prerogatives of their rank. For the most part they 
had courage enough, but with the exception of the Bavarian 
Elector, and perhaps Louis of Baden, seldom boasted any 
higher qualities. When Marlborough marched from the 
Moselle to the Danube his fame as a general was already 
unrivalled among his colleagues, and he represented besides 
the combined strength of England and Holland. Yet had 
it not been for his tact, suavity, and diplomacy, Blenheim 
might never have been fought, and that decisive campaign 
might have ended in disaster. Louis of Baden, who was 
satirised in a Flemish caricature as nodding over money 
bags — he was suspected of venality, and charged more 
certainly with supineness — claimed the command in virtue 
of his rank. Marlborough kept his temper, temporised 
suavely, and conceded the command upon alternate days. 
Yet, as it was, the concession made as a sacrifice to 
punctilio precipitated the sanguinary storm of the Schellen- 
burg, and the key of the hostile position was won at the 
critical moment, but at a useless cost. 

Eugene was to have a more varied experience of war 
than any general of his time. Napoleon scarcely made 



PRINCE EUGENE iii 

himself more familiar by personal survey with the strategical 
topography of Europe. For the Empire extended from the 
North Sea to the Lower Danube, from the Hanse towns 
and the Elbe to the Mincio and the Milanese, and the 
imperial pretensions embraced Spain and the Sicilies. As 
subaltern, chief of division, and general in command, 
Eugene had been everywhere where fighting was going 
forward, and had seen two very different sorts of service. 
In the West the wars were waged by rules — by rules which 
he seldom dared to violate. They were the well-considered 
moves on a chessboard, where mistake might be fatal, and 
where he was pitted against the veteran generals of France. 
In the East he was confronting the Turkish hordes, where 
the staunch and disciplined battalions of the Janissaries 
were supported by a rabble of wild horsemen, and there, 
as at Zenta and at Belgrade, he won decisive battles by 
venturing on liberties professionally unwarrantable as 
matters of cool calculation. In the West it was a war of 
sieges, with incessant marching and countermarching. The 
French and Flemish frontiers bristled with fortresses ; the 
banks of the Rhine were scarcely less strongly defended. 
Louis, on the one side, had the invaluable assistance of 
Vauban and Maigrigna, and they were rivalled by Cohorn, 
whose talent was at the service of the allies. Such sieges 
as those of Namur, Tournai, and Mons were protracted by 
every sort of work and counterwork that engineering skill 
could devise ; military science even then was replete with 
deadly surprises. Places of comparative insignificance, 
whose names are now almost forgotten, became points of 
vital importance in the plans of operations. When the 
town had been taken, after slow though sanguinary 



112 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

approaches, the garrison would withdraw to the citadel, 
where the whole bloody business was to recommence, on 
conditions often arranged — as at Namur — to spare the 
townspeople and their dwellings. So, while operations in- 
definitely dragged, there was ample time to arrange for 
possible relief. Covering armies slowly manoeuvred on a 
system of outlying defence. The spade and the pickaxe 
were as much in request as the cannon and the musket. 
Wherever an army bivouacked for more than a day, if an 
enemy were an3rwhere in the neighbourhood, trenches were 
dug and parapets thrown up. Longer delay meant the 
construction of formidable field works. What shows the 
power or the weakness of the field artillery of the day is 
the fact that " cannon-proof " defences were often con- 
structed in a single night. 

When the summer campaign was indefinitely prolonged, 
and armies lay in leaguer before fortresses deemed im- 
pregnable, threatened by others entrenched behind lines of 
circumvallation, the commissariat question was of urgent 
importance. The system was that war must support itself, 
and the countries were laid under ruthless contribution. 
Yet necessity suggested some sort of method. Frequently, 
before the winter camps were broken up, contracts were 
made with the local authorities, and the supplies, when 
practicable, were stored in magazines. When the magazines 
gave out, the troops had recourse to piUage, and often when 
the crops had failed they were reduced to dire extremities. 
Epidemics followed on famine or scarcity ; then the 
starving soldiers would break out in open mutiny, and 
never could it be said with greater truth that an army 
marches on its belly. The fate of the unfortunate prisoners 



PRINCE EUGENE 113 

of war was deplorable. In such circumstances the per- 
sonality of the leader counted for much. Eugene, like 
Marshal Villars, won the hearts of his soldiers not only by 
the dauntless courage which may have been almost a fault, 
but by his kindly attention to their comforts. What pre- 
science could do to provide for their wants, that he did, 
though at the best it was no easy matter when the portable 
biscuit had not been invented, and when the army had to 
live by bread and the bakeries. 

If he was beloved and trusted by the rank and file, he 
won the confidence of the intelligent officers who were to 
carry out his instructions. He had the eye and the instinct 
of the born strategist, could discern at a glance the capa- 
bilities of a battle ground, and he knew as much of fortifica- 
tion as the most capable of his engineers. He proved his 
science over and over again at the siege of Belgrade, when, 
at once beleaguering and beleaguered, his position had 
become well-nigh desperate. In such extremities he never 
trusted to others, but did the scouting and surveying for 
himself, and in such exceptional circumstances his careless- 
ness of life may have been justified, though he often escaped 
death by a miracle. Louis took the field in state, with all 
the pomp and ceremonial of Versailles ; but though he 
may be credited with the courage of his race, he seldom 
risked his sacred person. It may have been a venial weak- 
ness, but Eugene loved the pomp of war as much as the 
great King, and there was no lack of eager eleves to follow 
when he rode out on one of his reconnoitring expeditions, 
taking shallow trenches in the stride of his horse and 
running the gauntlet of the hostile batteries. At the siege 
of Belgrade, when he put his foot in the stirrup, crown 

H 



114 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

princes and nobles and high-bom volunteers were emulously 
crowding in his train, though wounds were common enough 
and saddles were often emptied. In the hottest fire he had 
a happy turn for pa3nng graceful or inspiriting compli- 
ments ; nor did he ever miss the opportunity of praising 
the gallantry of a subaltern in presence of the chief on 
whom he depended for promotion. He was blessed besides 
with the memory for faces which served Napoleon so well, 
when the friendly recognition of an old comrade gratified 
the veteran more than the cross of the Legion, with pension 
to correspond. 

Eugene was welcomed to Vienna in an anxious hour. 
The Magyars had risen in open revolt, and had summoned 
the Moslems to their aid. For the last time the Kaiser- 
stadt, the eastern bulwark of Christendom, was threatened 
by the Ottoman advance. Kara Mustapha, the famous 
Vizier, at the head of 200,000 men, was approaching the 
gates. Eugene, with his commission as colonel of cavalry, 
left the Court to join the army of the Duke of 
Lorraine. Lorraine, finding his communications threat- 
ened by the Turks, had broken up his camp on the Raab, 
sending his infantry back to the capital, while with 
his cavalry he withdrew to a position on the left bank of 
the river opposite Presburg. From thence he was com- 
pelled to a farther retreat. With the rearguard was the 
regiment of the Savoy dragoons, commanded by Eugene's 
brother. Within a few miles of Vienna, Eugene was for 
the first time under fire, when the Turkish vanguard made 
a desperate onset before the prey it was pursuing escaped. 
The attack was repelled after some fierce fighting, but 
Eugene had to lament the loss of his brother. The Turks, 



PRINCE EUGENE 115 

closing in upon the city, forced Lorraine from position to 
position. Avoiding a battle, Lorraine manoeuvred on their 
flanks or rear, challenging them to sundry sharp engage- 
ments. At length, in the early autumn, he could draw 
breath, when he formed a junction with the forces of 
Sobieski. Moreover, supports were coming up from Ger- 
many. When the combined forces mustered over 80,000 
strong, a rocket from the Kahlenberg gave the signal for 
the advance, and the excitement in Vienna was raised to 
fever pitch. The battle, though sharp, was short, and it 
was decisive. The rout of the Turks was complete, for 
panic succeeded to surprise, though they rallied and fell 
back very reluctantly from a campaign which they had 
expected to be crowned with victory. In all the fighting 
Eugene had been to the front under the command of his 
cousin, Louis of Baden, who at that time showed none 
of the lack of energy with which he was subsequently 
charged. But after the great battle on the Marchfeld, 
there was a brief rest in Vienna, when the young soldier 
made the acquaintance of the most renowned leaders of 
the imperial armies. 

After a few days of repose the army was following the 
enemy, and Eugene, attached to the staff of his cousin, 
distinguished himself in various cavalry actions, in which, 
as he says in his Memoirs, " the Turks were cut to pieces 
without mercy." The Emperor received him graciously, 
and, what was more to the purpose, promised him the first 
vacant command. While the army was in winter quarters 
the promise was redeemed, and he was gazetted to the 
colonelcy of a regiment of Tyrolese dragoons. 

Next summer, when the tables had been turned on the 



1x6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Turks, Lorraine was laying siege to Buda. In a battle in 
which a relieving army was routed, Eugene covered him- 
self with fresh laurels, and was specially named by the Duke 
in despatches. That summer's campaign brought him both 
credit and promotion. He was given the rank of major- 
general, for princes could rise rapidly in those days, and 
his cousin Louis wrote to the Kaiser : " This youth will 
in time take his place with those who are regarded as great 
leaders of armies." It was not only his cousin who held 
him in high estimation ; next summer, after another 
brilliant victory before Buda against an army led by the 
new Grand Vizier, Eugene was selected by the fighting 
Elector of Bavaria to carry the news to Vienna. Having 
delivered his message, he did not loiter. A grand assault 
on the fortress was imminent, and he would not miss the 
chance of glory. So far he had his wish that he arrived in 
time to take his post in the storm. It is needless to follow 
him through the complicated operations in detail. But at 
the second battle of Mohacs, when the defeat of the 
Magyars on the former memorable field was terribly avenged 
on the Turks, Eugene, at the head of a cavalry brigade, 
charged the trenches and cleared the ditches behind when 
the flower of the Turkish infantry were making a last 
desperate stand, pursuing the chase, sabring and slaughter- 
ing, till his troopers had to draw rein from sheer exhaustion. 
First in the trenches, he says himself : "I took a crescent 
and planted the imperial eagle." Again he was sent to 
carry the news to the Emperor. Nor did he lose anything 
by the departure of his two special patrons, the Elector of 
Bavaria and Louis of Baden, whose susceptibilities had 
been ruffled, and who had resigned in disgust. The loss 



PRINCE EUGENE 117 

brought him into personal relations with the Duke of 
Lorraine, who was not slow to appreciate his merits. 
Already, indeed, his fame had been spreading far and wide, 
so much so that his time-serving kinsman, Victor Amadeus 
of Savoy, deemed it worth while to pay him a substantial 
compliment. With consent of the Pope the dashing young 
cavalry leader was rewarded with the revenues of two of 
the best Piedmontese benefices. Simultaneously Leopold 
advanced the mitred major-general to the rank of heu- 
tenant-general. " A colonel at twenty," so he writes com- 
placently, " I was a lieutenant-general at twenty-five." 

The event of 1688 was the storm of Belgrade. Max 
Emmanuel of Bavaria was in command ; he had been 
conciliated by the generous conduct of Lorraine, who had 
retired rather than alienate so important an ally. The 
siege was pressed with ceaseless fire from the batteries, and 
with breaches pronounced barely practicable a morning 
was fixed for the assault. To Eugene's disappointment 
and surprise the command of the five attacking columns was 
given to other generals. He remonstrated with his friend, 
the Commander-in-Chief. " You shall remain with me in 
reserve," said the Elector, " and in this I am neither taking 
away nor giving you a bad commission. God knows what 
may happen " (sic). As Eugene goes on, "He had guessed 
the result." The stormers under Stahrenberg were brought 
up unexpectedly by a deep ditch, strongly stockaded. 
" All the assailants were repulsed. Sword in hand, this 
brave prince and myself rallied and cheered them. I 
mounted the breach ; a Janissary cleft my helmet with a 
stroke of his sabre ; I passed my sword through his body, 
and the Elector had an arrow in his cheek. Nothing could 



ii8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

be more brilliant or more sanguinary. How strangely one 
may find amusement amidst scenes of the greatest horror. 
I shall never forget the grimaces of the Jews, who had to 
throw into the Danube the bodies of 12,000 men, to save 
the trouble and expense of burying them." 

Sorely against his will, Eugene had to quit the camp 
charged with a diplomatic mission. The victories of the 
Emperor, which had recovered Hungary and Transylvania, 
had alarmed Louis, who, easily finding a pretext, sent his 
armies into the field to assail the western frontier of 
Germany. It was then the Palatinate was overrun and 
ruthlessly ravaged. Assailed on both sides, for he declined 
to come to honourable terms with the Turks, Leopold was 
casting about for new alliances. That of the Duke of 
Savoy became of great importance, and Eugene, under 
pretence of renewing relations with his family, was to 
travel to Turin. He was under no delusion as to the char- 
acter of his cousin, although he made allowances. " Those 
petty princes," as he remarks elsewhere, " such as the 
Dukes of Lorraine and Bavaria, are prevented by their 
geography from being men of honour." He knew Victor 
Amadeus "to be sordid, ambitious, deceitful, implacable, 
&c.," detesting and dreading Louis, indifferent to Leopold, 
and always ready to betray both. The way to influence 
him was through his mistresses or his ministers, and the 
envoy could count upon support from neither. Eugene was 
half Itahan, and though, soldier-like, he went straight to 
the point, it was with some suggestion of Machiavellian 
subtlety. He bluntly told the Duke he would always be the 
slave of his mortal enemy, unless he cast in his lot with the 
Emperor, who promised magnificent rewards, counselling 



PRINCE EUGENE 119 

him at the same time to dissemble till he was ready to 
throw off the mask. Later the envoy was to have many 
trying experiences of the duplicity he advised. He flattered 
the Duke by giving him the title of Royal Highness. 
" Sign the treaty with the Emperor at Venice," he added ; 
" there in the festivities of the Carnival you will meet the 
Bavarian Elector, who is fond of amusement like yourself." 
Eugene did not foresee that his friend the Elector was to 
wreck his fortunes by a change of policy to which he was 
to be more constant than the vacillating Duke. 

Eugene on his return to Vienna was warmly congratu- 
lated by the Emperor on his success. Characteristically, 
he only asked, by way of reward, permission to pay a flying 
visit to the Rhine frontier, where he had the luck to arrive 
in time to see the storm of Mayence and carry away a 
musket ball in the shoulder by way of souvenir. 

Payment of the subsidies stipulated with the allies con- 
verted for the time the Duke of Savoy into " the staunchest 
Austrian in the world." Eugene was to be sent to his 
assistance and to confirm him in his new resolution, and 
was promised a force of 7000 men. With his experience of 
imperial delays, he would not wait, and left them to follow. 
" Eager to engage the French, whom I had never yet seen 
opposed to me," he hurried to the Piedmontese camp. 
The Duke was all fire ; to do him justice he always de- 
lighted in battle. " I am going to give Catinat battle," 
he said, " and you are just in time." With all his headlong 
courage in action, Eugene was never rash. " Be cautious," 
he said ; " Catinat is an able general, and commands the 
flower of the French army." The caution was justified. 
Catinat took the initiative, led his men across morasses 



I20 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

deemed impassable, and Eugene, who had stubbornly held 
his own on the left, found his flank turned, and, withdrawing 
his division, was reduced to covering the retreat. Catinat 
carried all before him ; the Duke had lost everything but 
his capital, and Eugene went back to Vienna with a most 
disheartening report of the campaign. For himself, he had 
had some satisfaction for the discomfiture in the battle. 
He laid an ambuscade for a large French detachment 
returning loaded with plunder from the pillage of a town. 
Thoughtless of danger, they gave notice of their approach 
by singing in light-hearted French fashion " at the stretch 
of their throats." They changed their note when they 
were being cut to pieces almost to a man, though the Prince 
" scolded the soldiers severely for treating the prisoners 
a la Turque. They had forgotten that it is usual to give 
quarter to Christians," and indeed, in the wars of the time, 
the rule was as often honoured in the breach as in the 
observance. 

No general did more generous justice to his opponents. 
When baffled or checked in the game of war he had only 
admiration for the tactics which foiled him. He owns that 
he sometimes let his ardour get the better of his judgment, 
whereas Catinat, always cool, performed prodigies both as 
a general and soldier. But in the campaigns in Piedmont 
he was constantly embarrassed by the treachery of the 
double-faced and plausible Duke. Victor Amadeus, with 
his fortresses in the hands of the French, unscrupulously 
took the money of the allies while selling their secrets to 
Catinat. Once Eugene, arriving unexpectedly, found him 
closeted with a French envoy. The lame explanation was 
that he was negotiating with Catinat, but only with a view 



PRINCE EUGENE 121 

to deceive him the better. When Eugene undertook any 
enterprise, he had to mislead the Duke as well as the enemy. 
" It was impossible to determine whether this unaccount- 
able Duke wished or did not wish to gain the battles which 
he fought." Summer after summer, he saw the military 
fame which was as the breath of his nostrils imperilled by 
conditions he could not control. Hot as he was in action, 
he showed the sweetness of a temper which strove to make 
the best of things and of a patience which was training 
itself to wait and hope. At last, in 1696, matters came to 
a head. The Duke confessed that, weary of hostilities, he 
had concluded a treaty with Louis. He marched his troops 
to the camp of Catinat, and with the French general be- 
leaguered the Imperialists in Valence. Disgusted with the 
war and outmanoeuvred in negotiation, Eugene for the time 
turned his back on Piedmont. The Emperor understood 
the situation and was cordial as before. The Prince, with 
unfettered hands, was to have command of the army in 
Hungary, and he could have desired nothing better. At 
the same time there was an incident which could have been 
scarcely less gratifying. Louis, who had contemptuously 
refused " the little Abbe " a commission, taking it for 
granted that he had been disgusted by the treachery of the 
Duke and the success of the French intrigues, made him 
the most flattering overtures if he would pass into his 
service. Eugene remarks that his reception of the pro- 
posals was certainly never textually reported at Versailles. 

Heart and soul he was devoted to his profession. 
During these latter years there had been various interludes 
in which he had taken some sort of holiday, though business 
of the Empire was always the object. More than once he 



122 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

had visited Venice, where dissipation and luxury reigned 
supreme, in company of the Elector of Bavaria and other 
princes, who threw themselves into all the follies of the 
place. Eugene makes no profession of morality ; he merely 
remarks that he might have had his amours like the others, 
had he been so inclined — that there were many complaisant 
husbands who would have welcomed him in the role of 
Cicisbeo to their wives, but as it happened he had other 
matters to attend to. 

The Emperor would have done better to make terms 
with the Turks when they were in conciliatory mood after 
the capture of Belgrade. The strength and finances of the 
Empire were overtaxed by the triple war on the Rhine, in 
Italy, and on the Danube. The pride of the Sultan had 
been piqued by his humiliating reverses, and above all by 
the loss of Belgrade. Within two years of the loss, Bel- 
grade had been recovered, and in 1696 the steady Turkish 
approaches had again become very threatening. Another 
siege of Vienna seemed not impossible. Various leaders 
had lost credit in successive campaigns, and after some 
hesitation, for he had powerful enemies at Court, Eugene 
had at last been selected, as the most fortunate of the 
imperial generals. It was not till midsummer of 1697 
that he received his commission, and he set out imme- 
diately for the army. The army had been starved, and if 
his predecessors in command had been unlucky, it was not 
altogether their own fault. The troops were destitute of 
everything — their pay was long in arrear, their clothing was 
in rags, and the arsenals were empty. As with Napoleon's 
marshals in the Peninsula, jealousies were rife and the 
divisional commanders were at open enmity. Happily, as 



PRINCE EUGENE 123 

Eugene remarks, the Turks were never in a hurry, and he 
had already arrived at headquarters before the grand army 
of the Ottomans under the Grand Signior himself had reached 
Sofia. But if the march was as slow as the methods of 
mobilisation, the motley host was none the less formidable. 
From the Asiatic and European provinces Kara Mustapha 
had mustered the most numerous army the Turks had put 
in the field since their sanguinary defeat at Mohacs. 
Eugene improved the delay to the utmost. He sent 
pressing demands to Vienna for supplies, which in the 
emergency were more or less satisfactorily responded to, 
and imperative orders to the divisional generals to 
concentrate. 

He had had his earlier experiences of Oriental cam- 
paigning, although without the responsibilities of supreme 
command. He had to adapt himself to unfamiliar condi- 
tions and combinations, for it was a very different warfare 
from that he had directed in Italy and witnessed on the 
Rhine. We get a vivid idea of it in the picturesque 
pages of M. de la Colonic, " the old campaigner," whose 
chronicles were recently published. It is true that M. de 
la Colonic speaks of twenty years later, when he served 
under the Prince at the last memorable siege of Belgrade, 
but the Oriental methods had changed but little since 
Charles Martel routed the Saracens on the plain of Tours. 
They understood nothing of scientific war as it had been 
studied and developed in Western Europe. Leisurely as 
their movements might be, when they faced the foe they 
were always keen to force the fighting ; if they once broke 
the enemy's ranks defeat became irretrievable disaster ; 
with their flying squadrons of light horse they followed up 



124 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the advantage so swiftly that the fugitives had not a 
moment to rally. Invariably the Christians were greatly 
outnumbered, but, fortunately for them, there was little 
discipline in the raw levies raised on the feudal system. 
Each was headed by its own Pacha or Seraskier, who, with- 
out regard to the numbers of his contingent, occupied the 
central pavilion in an encampment of his own. He was 
supposed to relieve the Porte of all details as to clothing, 
pay, or transport, which were left very much to haphazard. 
The most formidable arm of the irregulars was the horse, 
admirably adapted for scouting or foraging, and terrible in 
the resistless onset when ranks were broken. They prided 
themselves on the keenness of their sabres, which they used 
with a dexterity which was almost sleight of hand, and 
so the German troopers who came from the Netherlands 
lined the hats they had worn there with solid steel plating. 
As for the Turkish and Tartar horse, they guarded the 
head, as native cavalry in India do at the present day, 
with the cumbrous folds of a turban, impervious alike to 
sunstroke and the sabre. That was likewise the head- 
wear of the Janissaries, who, as Kinglake described the 
Zouaves in the Crimea, were the steel point of the Turkish 
lance. The Janissaries had the discipline the others lacked, 
with the indomitable pride of a military caste who pre- 
ferred death to dishonour. Bred from boyhood to warfare 
in their barracks, with the nerves and strong limbs of 
Rayahs from the Christian provinces, fatalists as far as 
they had any faith, they were unequalled in the stubborn 
defence of entrenchments, and they rushed to the escalade 
of fortifications as to a fete. It was with the Janissaries 
Eugene had chiefly to reckon, and they were never spared 



PRINCE EUGENE 125 

when protecting the retreat in the days of disaster they 
were now to experience. 

When he reached the camp the general behef was that 
the Grand Signior intended to lay siege to Peterwardein 
on the Danube. But with the advancing army screened 
behind clouds of light horse, it was difficult to obtain 
reliable intelhgence. Suddenly, and to his surprise, Eugene 
learned that, in place of passing the Save, the Turks had 
crossed the Danube lower down, and by a crafty move 
had placed themselves in a position either to intercept 
Count Rabutin, who was on his march to headquarters 
with his detachment, or to strike at Peterwardein. Eugene 
had been deceived ; he had marched up the Theiss to meet 
Rabutin, but he hurried back in time to save Peterwardein 
— " too late," as he remarks, to assist General Nehem, who 
had been holding the covering fortress of Titel. The 
episode is worth mentioning for his comments on it. " I 
arrived too late, but nevertheless praised him, for he could 
not have held out any longer. God be praised, I never 
complained of any one, neither did I ever throw upon 
another the blame of a fault or a misfortune." Nor does 
he say so much without reason. In Piedmont, among the 
imperial generals, no one had been more unfriendly than 
the Prince of Commercy, and he had more than once been 
embarrassed by his jealousy or ill-will. Yet in the Memoirs 
he never misses an opportunity of speaking of Commercy 
in the highest terms. 

There is nothing to note in the manoeuvres which pre- 
ceded the decisive battle of Zenta. Eugene was always 
embarrassed by the swarms of cavalry he had difficulty in 
keeping at bay. At length he had the luck to catch a 



126 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Pacha who had been sent on a reconnoitring expedition. 
The Pacha was obstinately silent, till he found his tongue 
when " surrounded by four hussars with drawn sabres, 
ready to cut him in pieces." Then Eugene learned that the 
bulk of the Ottoman army was at Zenta on the Theiss, 
entrenched behind formidable field-works. " I was march- 
ing to attack them when a cursed courier brought me an 
order from the Emperor not to give battle under any cir- 
cumstances." He had advanced, as he says, too far to 
draw back. As Nelson put the telescope to his blind eye 
at Copenhagen, Eugene thrust the imperial letter into his 
pocket and rode on to reconnoitre at the head of six regi- 
ments of dragoons. He saw the Turks were preparing to 
pass the river, and galloped back to his army in high spirits. 
His look of elation, he says, was accepted by them as a 
good omen. He began the battle by heading a charge 
which sent 2000 Spahis back to their entrenchments. Then 
he directed a slow and complicated movement which was 
to envelop the whole Turkish army in a semi-circular on- 
slaught. It was a decision taken on the spur of the 
moment, one of the impromptu flashes of genius which 
mark the born general. It was one of those liberties in 
violation of the accepted rules of war on which he ventured 
when he counted with the character of the leader opposed 
to him. " I should not have dared to do so before Catinat," 
he remarks half apologetically. The encircling movement 
slowly developed. Meantime Eugene in the centre, having 
driven in the Spahis, advanced with some light field-pieces 
in the line to reply to the tremendous fire from the Turkish 
batteries. The Turkish camp was a half crescent, covering 
the bridge which spanned the river. Below the bridge the 



PRINCE EUGENE 127 

banks were steep ; above the Theiss ran shallow, and in 
the middle was a sandbank, which was to be used after- 
wards with fatal effect for the turning movement that took 
the enemy's entrenchments in the rear. A long train of 
loaded waggons, serving Boer-fashion as a second line of 
defence, were in waiting to pass the bridge. The battle 
was going with the Imperialists but the day was drawing 
on, and Eugene was alarmed lest the darkness should mask 
the Turkish retreat. It was six in the evening ere the 
entrenchments were breached, but then they were being 
broken and assaulted at many points. The Turks crowded 
in panic to the bridge and choked it ; they had to choose 
between drowning and falling by the sword. " On every 
side was heard the cry of A man I A man I which signifies 
quarter," but little quarter was given. " At ten of the 
night the slaughter still continued ; I could not take more 
than 4000 prisoners, but 20,000 were left dead on the field 
and 10,000 were drowned. I did not lose 1000 men." 
The Janissaries fought it out to the last with the indomi- 
table spirit of the corps. Assailed on every side, they were 
forced back at last, and then they found their retreat to 
the bridge intercepted by a body of pikemen under Guido 
Stahrenberg. They were virtually annihilated. The few 
who escaped saved themselves by swimming, but most of 
those who threw themselves into the water were swept 
away on the current, for the river was in flood. 

An immense booty fell into the hands of the victors. 
The Grand Signior and all his feudal aristocracy had taken 
the field in state. The pavilions with their rich contents 
had been abandoned. Among the spoils was the great seal 
of the Empire, to which special solemnity attached, and 



12 8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

which should have been worn round the neck of the Grand 
Vizier. All the weapons of the motley host had been 
abandoned, with the great train of artillery and innu- 
merable horses and animals of transport. There were the 
treasure chests as well, but though the contents sound 
formidable in piastres, they barely amounted to £25,000 of 
our money. 

The loss of prestige, with the demoralisation that fol- 
lowed, was even more serious. Thenceforth between 
Osmanli and Christian the situation was to be reversed. 
The Imperialists pushed their successes and encroachments, 
and the Turks in their turn had to stand on the defensive, 
parrying the strokes that were dealt them in rapid succes- 
sion. Immediately after the victory it was full late in the 
year to carry the campaign into the malarious flats of the 
Danube. Eugene, impetuous as he was, never ventured 
his foot farther than he could safely draw it back. He 
contented himself with raiding Bosnia, taking the castles 
and burning the towns, and then he scattered his men in 
their winter quarters. 

There was no safe reckoning with the Court of Vienna, 
where whisperers and backbiters had the Emperor's ear. 
Eugene repaired thither in the highest spirits, confidently 
expecting a welcome " a hundred times warmer " than he 
had ever received before. On the contrary, " Leopold gave 
me the coldest of audiences ; more dry than ever, he 
listened without saying a word." The victor of Zenta was 
actually asked to surrender his sword. " My rage was 
silent ; I was put under arrest in my hotel." He heard he 
was to be court-martialled for disobedience of orders, with 
probable condemnation to death. The popular indignation 



PRINCE EUGENE 129 

at the injustice was intense ; Eugene says that with tears 
in his eyes he had to use his influence to prevent an ^meute. 
But the popular demonstration was effective, and Eugene 
had a speedy revenge. The pride of the Hapsburg was 
humbled ; the Emperor not only returned him his sword, 
but prayed him to continue to command in Hungary. He 
consented, on the understanding that thenceforth he should 
have absolute carte blanche — a stipulation accepted, though 
subsequently broken. " The poor Emperor dared not 
concede so much publicly," but the General compromised 
for a private note to that effect, signed by the Emperor's 
own hand. The renewed appointment led to little, for 
again the war was starved, and next year the Imperialists 
were comparatively inactive. But the Prince's services had 
had more substantial recognition ; he had the grant of 
large domains in Hungary, and was becoming a wealthy 
man. He built or bought a palace in the Kaiserstadt, laid 
out gardens, began a noble library, and collected paintings 
and drawings for his galleries. He gave sumptuous enter- 
tainments, and had his private band, " to relieve me during 
dinner from the necessity of listening to tiresome persons." 

Not unwillingly he was disturbed in his Viennese Capua 
by the War of the Spanish Succession, for never was he so 
happy or so much at home as in the tented field. In 170 1 
he was in Italy, facing his old opponent Catinat " with 
30,000 good veteran troops." " I was now in the full 
career of war, after ten days of incredible labour among 
mountains and precipices with 2000 pioneers." He had 
crossed the mountains from Roveredo to Vicenza by one 
of the most daring marches on record, and Catinat for once 
was taken completely by surprise. The Prince had sealed 



I30 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the Tyrolese passes so that no news of his movement should 
escape, and had lavished money on spies who had brought 
him sure intelligence. Catinat fell back, leaving him all 
the country between the Mincio and the Adige. He passed 
the Mincio. Catinat, though still with the army, had been 
superseded by the incapable Villeroi, but the double-faced 
Duke of Savoy was in nominal command. There is a 
comic element in that campaign, and Eugene, who knew 
his cousin well by this time, had begun to manipulate him. 
Catinat, before the desperate battle near Chiari, had ad- 
vised retreat ; the Duke, " who wished Villeroi to get a 
sound drubbing," was all for the battle. " Never," says 
Eugene, " did I witness such valour " as on the ist 
September. He won the victory, but " Victor Amadeus 
was ever3^where, exposing himself like the most deter- 
mined of the soldiers. What a singular character ! He 
wished to lose the battle, but habitual courage stifled the 
suggestions of policy." Success after success kept the 
French on the retreat, but the season closed with the 
exhaustion of both armies. The French were deserting by 
hundreds. Eugene's forces were also dwindling perceptibly, 
" but my men were attached to me, and endured their hard- 
ships with patience." His horses, fed on dead leaves, were 
dying for lack of forage, powder and lead were giving out, 
no money was forthcoming, and his urgent appeals for 
supplies and reinforcements were, as usual, only answered 
by delusive promises. These were indeed the invariable 
conditions under which he fought his campaigns. An 
empty treasury always crippled the operations ; when, 
after a summer of straits and shifts, the troops were in 
winter quarters, their general either hurried to Vienna to 



PRINCE EUGENE 131 

press for means or despatched a confidential officer on the 
mission. 

But this is not a life of Eugene ; it is simply an 
episodical sketch. Enough has been given in detail to 
show something of his character and capacity, and the rest 
may be more summarily dismissed, the rather that his 
greatest campaigns in conjunction with Marlborough belong 
to familiar English history. But this winter, while he 
remained in Italy with the army, there was an incident 
notably characteristic of der edle Ritter, whose romantic 
daring made him the hero of the camp songs, for even in 
the winter camp he could not hibernate like other com- 
manders. One of these incidents was the surprise of the 
fortress of Cremona, held by a strong garrison under 
Marshal Villeroi. It came off in a night of rain and storm, 
and had nearly been a signal success ; as at the surprise of 
Bergen-op-Zoom under Lord Lynedoch, the assailants had 
actually penetrated to the heart of the town, and they 
were only repulsed through a failure in combination, when 
the garrison rallied and discovered their weakness. As it 
was, Villeroi himself was carried away a prisoner, though 
in the end that proved a doubtful gain, for the incompetent 
courtier of Versailles was replaced by Vendome, an anta- 
gonist in every way worthy of Eugene, and who, like him, 
seldom or ever blundered. After much manoeuvring and 
some sharp fighting in the early spring, so fully did Eugene 
recognise this that he resolved to attempt a repetition of 
the Cremona exploit, and send Vendome to keep Villeroi 
company at Vienna. Vendome in action was the soul of 
energy, but he was careless of danger, and indolence was his 
besetting sin. He occupied a solitary villa on the Mincio, 



132 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

at no great distance from the imperial lines. A water-party 
of 200 men had well-nigh caught him napping when an 
untimely shot gave the alarm prematurely, and the party, 
which were under the windows of the villa, had to beat a 
hasty retreat. There was suspicion of treachery, and every 
man of them was court-martialled and closely examined, 
but all were acquitted with the Scotch verdict of " Not 
proven." The narrow escape effectually roused Vendome, 
and the skill of Eugene was taxed to the utmost to hold 
his positions against a general eager for revenge and with 
far superior forces. After a summer of feints and counter- 
feints the French fell back, and Eugene could write to the 
Emperor that he had worn the enemy out, though he 
admitted that he had not gained the smallest advantage. 

In 1703 the scene shifts to the other side of the Alps. 
The political situation had been changing likewise, and not 
to the advantage of the Emperor. There were five French 
armies in the field, all under more or less able marshals. 
Eugene's old leader, Max Emanuel, a dangerous enemy, 
had finally decided for the French, opening a way for them 
into the heart of the Austrian dominions. It is true that 
Marlborough was on the Meuse, having broken the defen- 
sive barrier of the French fortresses, and the Dutch and 
Prussians had been victorious on the Lower Rhine. But 
on the other hand Hungary had risen in revolt, Vienna was 
in alarm, and Presburg in imminent danger. Eugene 
explained the situation briefly, and spoke out bluntly as 
was his custom. " The Emperor made me War Minister. 
I told him that war could not be carried on without troops 
or money. ... I put a stop to the peculations in every 
department. ... I said to the Emperor, ' Your army, sire, 



PRINCE EUGENE 133 

is your monarchy ; your capital is your frontier town. 
Your Majesty has no fortress ; every one is paid except 
those who serve you. Make peace, sire, if you cannot 
carry on war, and it is evident that you cannot do without 
the money of England.' " It outlined the poHcy he advo- 
cated, and indicated the alliance he negotiated. He gained 
his point and persuaded the Emperor, but ex nihilo nihil 
fit, and no money was immediately forthcoming. He took 
the field in Hungary in person, but " though Minister at 
War, I could not even give myself the army which Leopold 
had promised, and was unable to do anything." Next year 
the Hungarian rebels were actually in the suburbs of 
Vienna, and it was all Eugene could do to repulse them 
with his slender garrison and a muster of the burghers 
behind entrenchments hastily thrown up. 

Again he urged his views on the Emperor, and now he 
had carte blanche to negotiate. Indeed the situation had 
become so critical that there seemed but a single course 
to pursue. Three of the French armies were directly 
threatening Germany, and the Bavarian Elector held the 
country up to the Inn, and had seized some of the strong 
places in Upper Austria. If effective help did not come 
from the allies the Emperor was lost. Eugene put himself 
in immediate communication with Marlborough. He ex- 
plained that the Empire could do nothing in the Nether- 
lands, where the advances of the enemy threatened its very 
existence, but that his plans might be baffled by antici- 
pating them and fighting him on his own chosen ground. 
Those great generals, surveying the field of action, had 
simultaneously penetrated the French designs and come to 
identical conclusions. Marlborough answered Eugene by a 



134 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

march which took him over the Rhine to Heilbronn on the 
Neckar. Thither Eugene rode in hot haste, and it was 
the scene of the memorable meeting which had such 
momentous results. They were to act in the meantime 
apart, although in concert. Eugene, with characteristic 
modesty and self-abnegation, placed himself at once under 
the orders of his English friend. For friends they were 
from the first. Eugene says, " We sincerely loved and 
esteemed each other. He was indeed a great statesman 
and general." But he gives a curious explanation of the 
circumstance which first clenched that new friendship, as 
it finally cost him another. He had given Marlborough 
license to ravage Bavaria uncontrolled, and the Bavarian 
Elector was naturally " furious." 

Few battles have been more fiercely contested than 
Blenheim or Hochstadt. Seldom has the balance swayed 
more doubtfully as the tide of battle ebbed or flowed. 
Tallard to the last had good hopes of victory, and both the 
allied generals risked themselves recklessly, as matter of 
cool calculation, to inspirit their shattered battalions. All 
four of the leaders had their reputations at stake and some- 
thing more. Marlborough, overriding timid counsels, had 
marched into the heart of Europe with lengthening com- 
munications which made retreat almost impossible in the 
event of disaster. Eugene, in bringing him thither, had 
staked his credit with his master on the success of the 
grand stroke. Tallard, with his many enemies at Ver- 
sailles, had been as eager to advance as either of his 
adversaries, and he hazarded as much as they on the issue 
of the battle. As for the Elector of Bavaria, he had 
staked everything on the event. Nor did the soldiers who 



PRINCE EUGENE 135 

faced each other in the Hsts need much inspiriting. Marl- 
borough's men had bhnd confidence in the leader who had 
never known a check, and in almost similar case were 
Tallard's stubborn veterans, who held staunchly to their 
entrenchments in Hochstadt till they were enveloped and 
practically annihilated. But nowhere along the line was 
there a more tremendous shock and counter-shock than 
where Eugene found himself opposed to the Bavarians. 
Horse and foot, the Bavarians were in a white heat against 
the invaders who had sacked their towns and burned their 
homesteads. Their Elector himself headed the horse, and 
Eugene with the imperial cavalry scattered before them. 
He pistolled more than one of the fugitives, but they were 
panic-stricken and not to be rallied. Fortunately he had 
the picked Prussian brigades under Leopold of Anhalt- 
Dessau to fall back upon. Bavarians and Prussians met 
in close grips, and it was then that Eugene fought like a 
common soldier, having more than one miraculous escape 
before the stolid persistence of the Brandenburg veterans 
prevailed. The hard-won victory was due to the unre- 
mitting energy and vigilance of two sympathetic generals 
of rare penetration, ever ready to lend each other assistance 
where the strain was most severe. " I was under the 
greatest obligations to Marlborough," writes Eugene, " for 
his changes in the dispositions according to circumstances." 
Tallard had matter for sad reflection on the luck of war ; 
twice, he wrote in his despatches, he had nearly won the 
battle, and twice he was balked by misadventures which 
could neither be foreseen nor avoided. Most to be pitied 
was the unfortunate Bavarian Elector, who had done 
through the battle all that man could do. He saved him- 



136 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

self with the relics of his gallant regiments, falling back 
upon Villeroi, who was coming up too late. It was a 
mournful greeting he gave the Marshal : "I have sacrificed 
my dominions for your king, and now I am ready to sacri- 
fice the life which is all that is left me." 

Marlborough was made a Duke, and a Prince of the 
Empire. " Louis of Baden and I went to amuse ourselves 
at Stuttgard." But away from his books or his cherished 
art-collections, Eugene was restless in repose, and next 
spring he reminded the Emperor that the Duke of Savoy, 
who had become thoroughly Austrian, had been brought to 
the brink of ruin. " Well," was the answer, " take him 
reinforcements and the command in Italy." Eugene knew 
his man and made his bargain. He reminded him again of 
the extremities to which he had been reduced in previous 
Italian campaigns. He got his troops, with the promise of 
their being punctually paid, but saw them out of Vienna 
before starting himself. It was then he made the memor- 
able march when, as Mrs. Christian Davies — or Defoe — 
remarks, notwithstanding all Vendome could do to impede 
it, " he broke through all the obstacles the French threw 
in his way, and subsisted his men in an enemy's country 
which he was obliged to cross ; passed several large rivers, 
and in thirty-four marches joined the Duke of Savoy " 
when Turin was in the last extremity. The battle of 
Cassano, at the bridge over the Adda, was almost as bloody 
as Blenheim. He and Vendome were striving to outwit 
each other. " I had been informed that Vendome took a 
nap in the afternoon, from which no one durst awake him 
from fear of putting him in an ill-humour." Eugene took 
advantage of the siesta and had pierced the French left 



PRINCE EUGENE 137 

before the Duke galloped up at the head of the household 
troops. Vendome was shot in the boot, Eugene in the 
neck and the knee ; both leaders performed prodigies of 
valour, but it was pretty much a drawn battle. Again the 
Prince does his enemy justice. " Not to be beaten by such 
a man is more glorious than to beat another." 

The following summer saw the famous campaign on the 
Riviera, when he had been made a lieutenant-general and 
field-marshal. He dismisses it briefly himself as without 
success, though his advance and masterly retreat through 
the mountains added greatly to his fame. 

Then again his campaigns in the Netherlands blend 
with English history and the career of Marlborough, In 
1708 he was busily recruiting for the Emperor. He met 
Marlborough at the Hague with a cordial embrace, and 
both were preoccupied in stimulating the zeal of the 
sluggish Dutch envoys, promising that they would give the 
enemy immediate battle in defence of the strong places of 
the frontier barrier. Then Eugene resumed his recruiting 
tour, beating up for reinforcements from the Electors and 
petty princes. Soon he had gathered an army at Coblentz, 
and the original understanding had been that he should act 
separately on the Moselle. The plan had to be recon- 
sidered when they were informed of the superior strength 
of the French, who could operate moreover on inner lines, 
and that Berwick was on the march from Alsace to reinforce 
Vendome and the Duke of Burgundy. A hundred thousand 
French were opposed to little more than half the number 
under Marlborough, and hastily he summoned Eugene to 
his assistance. He found Marlborough encamped between 
Brussels and Alost, and asked on the moment of his arrival 



138 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE1 

if he did not mean to give battle. " I think I ought," 
was Marlborough's answer, for the French were threatening 
the important fortress of Oudenarde, and its fall must have 
a depressing effect on the wavering Dutch allies. The 
upshot of the conference was the great and bloody and 
confused battle, which should have been decisive could they 
only have arrested the movements of the sun like Joshua 
at Ajalon. Eugene, though he had come without any of 
his own troops, was in command of the aUied right. Much 
of the day was passed in manoeuvring, misunderstandings, 
and skirmishing, till the Duke of Argyle brought up the 
British infantry, to be followed more leisurely by the Dutch 
battalions. At last the battle was aligned, when the im- 
petuous Eugene exclaimed to his cooler colleague, " And 
now we are in a condition to fight." Already it was six in 
the evening, with but three hours of daylight. The battle 
became general along the line, and Eugene says, " The 
spectacle was magnificent. It was one sheet of fire." 
Matters, he added, were going ill where he commanded, when 
Marlborough sent a reinforcement of eighteen battalions, 
" without which I should have been scarcely able to hold 
my ground." Thus reinforced, he drove in the first line, 
but before the second was Vendome on foot, with pike in 
hand, showing a gallant example to his soldiers. Before 
that vigorous resistance Eugene owns he would have failed, 
had it not been for the gallant charge of Natzer with the 
Prussian gendarmes, who broke the enemy's line and won 
the victory. For Eugene, very unlike Napoleon, never 
grudged a friend or an inferior the full credit he deserved. 
Meantime the centre had been carried, and Marlborough 
had been making his way on the left, though at dearer 



PRINCE EUGENE 139 

cost. Behind the hedges and ditches, the French house- 
hold troops, who had been held in reserve, were still offering 
desperate resistance, till Eugene, as he says, settled the 
business by sending a detachment by a great circuit to 
take them in rear. The battle became a rout when falling 
darkness threw a curtain over the fugitives and stopped 
the pursuit. 

Feeling sure that Marlborough would make all necessary 
arrangements to follow up the success, Eugene went next 
day to Brussels to visit his mother. She welcomed him 
with warm congratulations on his latest acquisitions of 
glory, but " I told her that, as at Blenheim, Marlborough's 
share was greater than my own." The venerable lady, 
always rancorously vindictive, was delighted at this new 
humiliation inflicted on her old lover. " The fifteen days 
which I passed with her were the most agreeable of my 
life, and we parted with the greater pain that it was 
probable we should never meet again." 

When he returned to camp he found that his troops 
from the Moselle had preceded him. He says that it was 
he who suggested the siege of Lille, the bulwark of French 
Flanders, and he was charged with its conduct, while 
Marlborough was to command the covering army. " The 
brave and skilful Boufflers cut out plenty of work for me." 
Two assaults were repelled " with horrible carnage." Five 
thousand English sent by Marlborough to repair the losses 
were likewise repulsed. " I said a few words in English 
to those brave fellows who rallied round me ; I led them 
back into the fire, but a ball below the left eye knocked 
me senseless. Everybody thought me dead, and so did I. 
They found a dung-cart, in which I was carried to my 



I40 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

quarters : first my life and then my sight was despaired 
of." Life and sight being saved, he returned to the siege. 
On the 22nd September the resourceful Boufflers, having 
exhausted every method of defence, offered to surrender 
the town unconditionally. Eugene promised to sign any- 
thing he should propose. " ' This, M. le Mar^chal,' so I 
wrote to him, ' is to show my perfect regard, and I am 
sure that a brave man like you will not abuse it. I con- 
gratulate you on your resistance.' " Boufflers protracted 
the defence of the citadel, but the citadel had to capitulate 
in turn. The Prince signed the articles the Marshal asked 
" without any restriction," and went with the Prince of 
Orange to pay him a visit in the battered fortress. Eugene 
was persuaded to stay for supper — " on condition that it 
may be that of a famished citadel. Roasted horse-flesh 
was set before us, and the epicures in my suite were far 
from relishing the joke." The fall of Lille was followed 
by that of Ghent and Bruges, when the armies went into 
winter quarters. 

The Dutch, who had hitherto been lukewarm, were 
now delighted, and the generals had an extraordinary re- 
ception at the Hague. " It was nothing but a succession 
of honours and festivities ; presents for Marlborough and 
fireworks for me." The tributes paid them respectively 
sound ironically significant. In spring they were in the 
field again with 100,000 men, pitted against the same 
number under Villars. They decided on beginning with 
the siege of Tournai. The fortress surrendered " after the 
most terrible subterraneous war I ever witnessed." Villars 
had never moved for the relief. " ' Let us go and take 
Mons,' said I to Marlborough ; ' perhaps this devil of a 



PRINCE EUGENE 141 

fellow will tire of being so cautious.' " That was agreed 
upon, and " as soon as our troops from Tournai had 
arrived, ' Let us lose no time,' said I, ' and in spite of 
120,000 men [for Villars had been reinforced by Boufflers], 
hedges, villages, triple entrenchments, abattis, and a 
hundred pieces of cannon, let us end the war in a day.' " 
Accordingly the battle of Malplaquet was decided upon. 
A dense mist on the morning of the nth of September 
veiled their dispositions. It was dispelled at eight by a 
general discharge of the guns. Then they saw Villars 
riding down the ranks, greeted by shouts of " Vive le roi et 
M. de Villars." Eugene advanced to the attack in silence. 
He says his English Guards were scattered, some from 
excess of courage, others from a lack of it, but bringing 
up his German battalions he rallied them. Even then 
the onslaught would have been beaten back had it not been 
for the division of the Duke of Argyle, who scaled the 
parapets of the second entrenchments, seizing the covering 
wood. Eugene was again hit in the head, and lost blood 
so fast that those about him urged him to have the wound 
dressed. " If I am beaten," he said, " it will not be worth 
while ; if the French win, I shall have plenty of time for 
that." We hardly see the logic, but it marks the spirit 
of the man. On the right with Eugene all was going well ; 
but for six hours Marlborough had found it hard to hold 
his own against the enemy's right and centre. The Prince 
of Orange had pushed gallantly to the front and planted 
a flag on the inner entrenchment, but his Dutch for the 
most part had been killed or wounded. Eugene, when the 
stress lightened on him, sent his cavalry to his colleagues' 
help, but they were met and overthrown by the French 



142 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Household Brigade, who were broken in turn by the fire 
of some flanking batteries. Nevertheless Marlborough 
stubbornly forged ahead, and as the French centre was 
being forced back, Eugene, having routed their left, found 
it easy to outflank it. " Boufflers rendered the same ser- 
vice to Villars as I did to Marlborough, and when he saw 
him fall from his horse dangerously wounded and the 
battle lost, thought of nothing but making the first retreat 
in the best possible order. I think it not too much to 
estimate the loss of both armies at 40,000 ; those who were 
not killed died of fatigue." 

The three succeeding years were comparatively un- 
eventful, occupied by manoeuvring and occasional sharp 
skirmishing among the fortresses, when operations were 
hampered by political complications. The war in the Low 
Countries ended when, in March 1713, the allies and France 
signed the Treaty of Utrecht — with an important ex- 
ception. Leopold was dead, Joseph had passed like a 
shadow, and Charles now filled the imperial throne, inflated 
with pride and the incarnation of obstinacy. But it was 
with the assent and at the instigation of Eugene that the 
Emperor declined to subscribe. Eugene pledged himself 
that, by prolonging the war on the Rhine, he would keep 
the French in check there and obtain neutrality for the 
Spanish Netherlands. Experience should have taught him 
that he promised more than he could perform ; the money 
came in by driblets, the German princes hung back, and 
Villars, always on the alert, was pressing him with far 
superior forces. He lost Landau and then Freiburg, when 
he had failed to hold the mountain passes. By no fault 
of his, he protests, but " ' Farewell to the Empire ; farewell 



PRINCE EUGENE 143 

to its two bulwarks,' was the cry at all the courts of Ger- 
many." " The title of Emperor," he bitterly adds, " does 
not bring a man or a single kreutzer." Louis, weary of 
the war, came unexpectedly to his relief ; after the Peace 
of Utrecht he could afford to make the first advances, and 
now the Emperor was not unwilling to meet him half-way. 
Eugene and Villars were charged with the negotiations, and 
they met at Rastadt, in peace instead of battle. There is 
a picturesque and humorous account in the Memoirs of the 
meeting of these chivalrous foes. " Villars was at Rastadt 
first, to do the honours of the place, as he told me, and 
received me at the foot of the stairs. Never did men 
embrace with more military sincerity, and I may add, with 
more esteem and attachment. Our juvenile friendship 
when companions in arms in Hungary, and our intimacy 
in Vienna when he was ambassador there, interrupted by 
military exploits on both sides, rendered this interview so 
affecting that the officers and men of the escorts also 
cordially embraced." In the talk of an hour, they had 
settled the basis of the treaty. Couriers were sent off to 
secure the ratifications of their masters. " Then," said 
Eugene, " while we are waiting, allow me, my dear 
Marshal, to spend the Carnival at Stuttgard. My body 
needs recreation, but for these two years past, owing to 
you, my mind has been in still greater need of it." " With 
all my heart," was the answer, " and I will go and amuse 
myself at Strasburg." Before parting, they exchanged 
dances and banquets, in which Eugene admits that the 
Frenchmen had the best of it. And they freely discussed 
the qualities of their respective nations, for Eugene seems 
by this time to have forgotten that he was virtually French. 



144 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Both gave the rein to their mordant humour. The French 
marshal did not scruple to ridicule Madame de Main tenon, 
and Eugene laughed at the plethora of empty titles assumed 
by Charles in his magniloquent self-deification. His part- 
ing words to Villars were, " We shall probably fight no 
more battles and sign no more treaties together, but we 
shall never cease to love and esteem each other." It was 
at the Swiss Baden that the Treaty of Baden had been 
signed. 

Neither had any regret for Queen Anne, who died before 
the signatures, but when Louis the Great followed her 
next year, Eugene paid him a generous tribute. The old 
griefs and insults were all forgotten. The death " pro- 
duced the same effect on me as the fall of an old stately 
oak uprooted by a tempest. He had stood so long ! Death, 
before it erases great recollections, revives them all in the 
first moment. History is indulgent to princes. That of 
the great monarch needed no indulgence ; but age had 
blunted the talons of the lion. A regency was destined to 
give us time to breathe. But then a circumstance occurred 
which cut out plenty of work for us again." 

Eugene and Villars had been discussing the Turks. 
" Are they as stupid as in my time, when I began to 
admire you, Monseigneur ? " asked the Marshal. " They 
have never changed their system and they never will," 
answered Eugene ; " nevertheless they might turn it to 
good account." And he explained how if they were to 
change their order of battle, when advancing with their 
Spahis on their wings, and " their accursed shouts of Allah ! 
Allah ! " they might be invincible. When discussing them 
quietly he did not foresee how soon he was to have another 



PRINCE EUGENE 145 

opportunity of testing their tactics, and how nearly they 
were to crush the victor of so many campaigns, notwith- 
standing their antiquated methods of fighting. 

For if he had hoped for a spell of rest he was doomed 
to disappointment. Nor had he even time to assume the 
Governor-Generalship of the Netherlands which had been 
conferred on him. The Sultan had declared war with 
Venice and sent an army to the Morea. To the Emperor 
he was full of peaceful professions, but Charles was wise 
enough to know that it was his interest to ally himself 
with the menaced republic against the hereditary enemy. 
The answer of the Grand Vizier to the imperial rebuff was 
to levy a second great army and to set it on the march for 
the imperial frontiers. Count Palffy, then in command in 
Hungary, concentrated at Peterwardein. At midsummer 
of 1715 Eugene hastened thither ; there he learned that 
the Vizier was already in the vicinity of Belgrade with 
200,000 men, and that supports were coming up fast. The 
Turks crossed the Save, and by the ist of August had 
entrenched themselves at Carlo witz on the Danube. 
Eugene sent Palffy forward to reconnoitre with two or three 
cavalry regiments and a handful of infantry. He had 
orders not to be drawn into an action, but with the swarms 
of the Turkish irregular horse, action was often inevitable. 
Enveloped in front and on the flanks, he fought it out, and 
set the crown that day on a brilliant career by bringing the 
remnants of his little force within the lines of Peterwardein. 
It was the prelude to the great battle fought by Eugene 
a few days after. The Turks were always gathering 
strength, and he decided to attack them in their formidable 

works, against the opinion of his best generals. The 

K 



146 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

battle illustrates the invariable fashions of the time in 
making war. Eugene often remarks on the Turkish custom 
of immediately entrenching themselves, but like all his 
contemporaries he made as much use of the spade himself. 
Here, however, he had been spared the trouble, for advanc- 
ing to Carlowitz, he occupied entrenchments which had been 
thrown up by Caprara two and twenty years before. So 
two field fortifications were facing each other, both heavily 
armed with guns. Eugene adapted his tactics to the 
Turkish formation, forced upon them by the contour of 
their camp. He sums up the action in a few lines. His 
right wing, thrown into disorder by the narrow outlets 
from the works, was broken before it had time to re-form ; 
his centre was shaken by the Turkish fire, which paved the 
way for the tremendous onslaught of the Janissaries ; but 
meantime his left, under the Prince of Wiirtemberg, carry- 
ing all before it, had turned the Turkish right. He launched 
Palffy with 2000 horse on the cavalry in the rear of the 
hitherto victorious Janissaries. They looked back to see 
the scattering of the Spahis — they saw, too, that the key of 
the position was lost ; the Grand Vizier himself had fallen 
at the foot of the sacred standard ; and then sullenly retiring, 
retreat was turned to flight. Before noon the five-hours 
battle had been lost and won, and the field was abandoned. 
Great was the booty, for in the sudden rout and panic 
nothing was saved. " I entered the tent of the Grand 
Vizier, and there the chaplains of the nearest regiments 
in a loud voice returned thanks to the God of armies in 
prayers repeated by the soldiers." The victory caused a 
joyful sensation in Christendom. The Pope sent a conse- 
crated hat and sword, and Marshal Villars a letter of warm 



PRINCE EUGENE 147 

congratulation. Strangely enough, Eugene makes no men- 
tion of the terrible storm which burst upon his troops 
while taking up their positions, tore the floating mills from 
their moorings, driving them against the boat-bridges, 
and, by delaying the passage of the columns, threatened 
to upset his combinations. 

Other operations followed, but winter was coming on, 
and all was only the prelude to the great siege of 1717. 
Eugene prepared for it by a tax laid on the Empire, which 
he counterbalanced, as he claims, by openings for commerce 
which no one else would have dreamed of. But in his 
preparations for the war he spent lavishly, and there, as 
he admits, the Jews got the better of him. He was set 
upon the capture of Belgrade, which for three centuries, 
as he says, had been a constant bone of contention. The 
news of the Crusade drew princely and noble adventurers 
to his standard from all the countries of Europe. Bavaria 
was again in alliance with the Empire, and the Elector sent 
his two sons to the camp. The new Grand Vizier was a 
more formidable antagonist than his hot-headed predecessor, 
and Eugene remarks that " he cost me a deal of trouble." 
On the loth of June he crossed the Danube, his volunteer 
princes tumbling into the boats that they might be the 
first over to cross swords with the Spahis. On the igtli 
Eugene himself had a narrow escape from their light horse- 
men, when reconnoitring the ground for his camp. 

Belgrade is in the angle between the meeting of the 
Danube and the Save. Where it faces westward it is in the 
form of an amphitheatre. So the lines of the Imperialists 
corresponded in shape of a crescent, one horn resting on 
the Danube, the other on the Save, and each communicating 



148 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

with the opposite bank by a boat-bridge which was guarded 
by a heavily-armed redoubt. The camp lay between double 
lines of contravallation and of circumvallation, for sorties 
from the fortress were an imminent danger, and the Vizier's 
relieving army, much magnified of course by rumour, was 
known to be on the march. The bridges were further 
protected by a flotilla of so-called frigates. The fortress 
mounted 100 guns, besides those on shallow boats which 
were practically floating batteries, and Eugene had in- 
voluntarily strengthened the garrison by driving in an 
outlying corps of infantry. There were known to be ample 
supplies of food and ammunition; and everything foreboded 
a protracted defence had no succour been at hand. Even 
with a weaker garrison the place was eminently defensible. 
The citadel towered above the lower town ; two suburbs 
were embraced in the fortified enceinte, with gardens and 
enclosures that were so many earthworks, and all of them 
swept by the batteries above. The Governor, known for 
a gallant veteran, had 30,000 seasoned soldiers. Eugene's 
venture seemed the desperate one it proved, but he had 
reckoned with his knowledge of the Turks. The Turks 
behind walls were little given to the initiative, and perhaps 
the commandant was the more supine that he counted 
confidently on speedy relief. The besiegers were little 
troubled by sorties, and there was only one of any conse- 
quence. That was when the commandant woke up to the 
fact that Eugene had broken ground beyond the Save, 
whence he could bombard the town on the slopes of the 
amphitheatre. From the heights the enemy could see all 
that went on. He knew that the imperial batteries in 
embryo were isolated by marshes, both from the camp and 



PRINCE EUGENE 149 

from the town of Semlin behind. Under cover of night the 
Turks sHpped across the river, bringing Hght field-pieces with 
them. Their rush came as a complete surprise ; except 
the few who had time to bolt not a man escaped. The 
Turks cleared the trenches and were gone before any help 
could come, and their boats were ballasted with the heads 
of the fallen. The " Old Campaigner " tells us that then 
there was a ducat set on every Christian head, which fired 
the fanaticism of a soldiery whose pay was invariably in 
arrear. 

Time was pressing, and the Prince, though he puts a 
smiling face on it, must have had many an anxious hour. 
On the 22nd of July he writes, " I bombarded, burned, and 
battered down the city at such a rate that it must have 
capitulated had it not been for the expected approach of 
the Grand Vizier." In fact, within a week his advanced 
parties made their appearance. On August ist the semi- 
circle of hills was crowned by the Mussulman host, " a 
charming view for a painter but a most execrable one for 
a general." Eugene had been hard at work on his outer 
lines of circumvallation. The Turks, as was their custom, 
began immediately to entrench themselves, and now the 
besieger had become the besieged, held fast as in a vice 
between the lines of his enemies. There were 30,000 in 
Belgrade ; there were 200,000 with the Vizier at the lowest 
calculation. Allowing for those on detachment duty and 
for the fever and dysentery which had filled the hospitals, 
he had barely 50,000 valid soldiers under his hand. Eugene 
was himself prostrated by the fever. He was compelled 
to defer the attack he had meditated, but meantime " our 
condition was daily growing worse " ; and he adds, " I must 



ISO SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

needs think they were rather uneasy at Court, in the city, 
and even in my own army." Heavily bombarded from 
both sides, the sick leader had to shift his tent continually, 
and each hour he was losing men by the score, either by 
gun-fire or dysentery. Nevertheless he says, " My princes 
loved me like a father." For once there was advantage in 
an army made up of corps from different countries. A 
generous rivalry was stimulated, and all were eager for 
opportunities. Yet all were alive to the impending crisis. 
" Eugene alone," says one of his officers, " remained un- 
moved ; " he was confident his chance would come, and 
waited for the moment of action. Nor could it be long 
deferred, though meantime the pressure from without urged 
him to fresh efforts. He stormed outlying works, he opened 
new parallels, and as a consequence blocked the garrison 
closely within their walls. 

He had expected that the Vizier would deliver an im- 
mediate onslaught. But the Turks had learned caution 
from the tremendous defeats he had inflicted on them, and 
now they adopted more deliberate methods. Under 
direction of renegade engineers, they made elaborate pre- 
parations for the storm of his camp, till they had actually 
pushed their last parallels within gunshot. No one of the 
defenders dared show his head without being the mark for 
a shower of bullets. From gunshot the parallels were 
advanced to pistol-fire, and showers of bursting shells each 
night were making the Christian positions almost untenable. 
The Prince had waited long for the opening which had 
never been offered. On the 15th of August he summoned 
a council, and " in spite of the bad advice of people who 
are not fond of war, I determined upon an engagement." 



PRINCE EUGENE 151 

Everything was arranged for a nocturnal attack. The 
troops were to fall into order before dark, that there might 
be as little confusion as possible. There were four openings 
through which they were to issue, so as to deploy in the 
cramped space between the lines, and the cavalry from the 
extreme right and left were to act upon the Turkish flanks 
when the central attack was being pushed home. The 
cavalry found their passage obstructed by unexpected 
obstacles, and so there was delay and confusion. The day 
was already breaking before all the infantry had left their 
entrenchments. It seemed that discovery was sure and 
destruction inevitable when Christendom was spared a 
crushing catastrophe by what was piously regarded as a 
miracle. For the first time for many mornings the scene 
of action was enveloped in a dense fog. It not only con- 
cealed movements from the Turkish sentinels but smothered 
sounds. The enemy had fancied something was passing 
behind the imperial works, and opened a tremendous fire. 
Shot and shell passed over the heads of the stormers, leaving 
them almost unscathed. When the fog lifted and the sun 
blazed out, the stormers were already rushing the hostile 
parapets. Eugene admits that there was little to choose 
between the confusion on either side, and so it became a 
sort of Inkerman — a soldier's battle. He gives chief credit for 
the winning of the day to La Colonic, "the Old Campaigner," 
and his Bavarians, confirming all that La Colonic tells us 
in his chronicles. The Bavarians, ignoring orders from in- 
ferior generals to halt and dress the line, in four long hours 
fought their way from trench to trench, till they stormed the 
great oval entrenchment, the key of the enemy's position, 
and turned its cannon on the flying Turks. The first 



152 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

intimation of the change of the direction of the guns was a 
shot sent into a group surrounding the Grand Vizier, which 
dropped three of the number. Their prompt retreat was 
imitated by all the horse and foot within sight. The 
Bavarian Electoral Prince fell on La Colonie's neck, and 
Eugene galloped up with his tactful compliments. All was 
over by eleven o'clock. Fair terms were granted to the 
Belgrade garrison, which they had earned by their abstention 
from all interference with the action. 

In fact there is a good deal that is suggestive in Eugene's 
report of his reception in Vienna. He says that the 
Emperor agreed with the devout who ascribed his success 
to a miracle, and that Stahrenberg was the mouthpiece 
of the envious who attributed it to pure luck. Not only 
was the fog a most providential interposition, but the in- 
action of the governor Mustapha, renowned as a good 
soldier, is incomprehensible. Had he co-operated with his 
30,000 men at the critical moment, General Viard, who was 
left with but 5000 to hold the lines, could never have made 
head against him. And it was well the great battle came 
off when it did, for strong Turkish reinforcements were 
rapidly advancing, and one of the imperial generals had 
faltered at their approach. 

Eugene rested on his laurels for sixteen years. He 
honestly owns that, being " fond of war," he regretted the 
conciliatory dispositions of the Sultan and the Emperor. 
For those sixteen years he amused himself in his palace, 
passing much of the time in the library, which contained 
many rare and curious volumes. But in 1733, with the 
death of Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 
there was another disputed succession with a call to arms. 



PRINCE EUGENE 153 

The French were again in the field, for France and the 
Emperor supported rival candidates. The aged Villars was 
sent to Italy, while a powerful army under the Duke of 
Berwick prepared to pass the Rhine. Eugene, war-lover 
as he was, reminded his master that he had neither army 
nor allies, but the Emperor turned a deaf ear. Tauntingly, 
perhaps, as Eugene hints, he offered him the command of 
what troops there were, in the expectation that he would 
decline. If so, he was disappointed. Eugene repeats that 
he was fond of war, and was willing besides to court the 
fate that had befallen the great Turenne and was soon to 
overtake Berwick. He was at Heilbronn before the end of 
April. He was touched to the heart by the greeting of his 
old soldiers, who received him with shouts of " Long live 
our father ! " and the tossing of hats by thousands in the 
air. The result of the roll-call was less satisfactory, for 
he found he had no sort of strength to face the forces of 
Berwick. He boasts that with numbers of one to three 
he forced Berwick to confine himself to the siege of Philipps- 
burg. It was an unlucky siege for the French Marshal, who 
had his head carried away by a cannon-ball, though Eugene 
envied his glorious end. Nor did the Prince gain by the 
change of commanders. He found d'Asfeldt, as he says, 
" a devil of a fellow, who had all his wits about him." He 
was compelled to abandon the lines of Philippsburg and 
to look on helplessly at the fall of the fortress. Meantime, 
however, reinforcements had been coming up, and with 
them, as usual, the young princes and nobles, who came 
to school under the famous master of war. Among these 
was the Prince Royal of Prussia, the future Frederick the 
Great, " who appeared a young man of infinite promise." 



154 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Reinforced and in no unfavourable position, Eugene has 
been severely criticised for not risking a battle. Had it 
been the Eugene of the march to Turin or of Zenta, it is 
more than probable he might have done so and had reason 
to regret it. But with years and experience had come a 
grave sense of responsibility, and his own defence seems 
incontestable — " The first that attacked must have been 
beaten, and had that been my lot, the French might have 
gone to Vienna, for there was no fortified place on the way. 
There was no Sobieski then to save the capital." The 
campaign ended with cautious manoeuvring on both sides, 
and next year saw the signature of a peace at Eugene's 
urgent instigation. Fond as he may have been of war, 
he heartily congratulated the Emperor on having got 
creditably out of " such an awkward scrape." He might 
have had greater political influence at Court, had he not 
invariably spoken his mind with the bluntness of a soldier. 
He saw the signing of the peace in the autumn and 
he only survived till the spring. If he did not fall in battle 
as he desired, his death was as sudden as it was painless 
and easy. He dropped his cards one evening, complaining 
of indisposition. Taken home, he was put to bed, and was 
found dead in the morning. Napoleon, who in a double 
sense followed in his footsteps, has assigned him the highest 
rank among generals of genius. 



VI 

MARSHAL KEITH 

James Keith was a youth of eighteen when his cousin, the 
Earl of Mar, raised the white standard in his forest of 
Braemar. It was an unhappy beginning to a brilhant 
career. Like the Earl of Derwentwater, the Earl Marischal 
and his brother were almost constrained to turn rebels in 
the '15. There was not only their near kinship to Mar, 
who, as a chronicler of the time very truly remarked, would 
turn cat-in-the-pan with any man, but their mother, a 
daughter of the Earl of Perth, the persecuting Chancellor 
of James VII., was by birth and upbringing a fanatical 
Jacobite. The ballad of " Lady Keith's Lament " was 
said to have been her own composition, though more pro- 
bably it was a forgery by the Ettrick Shepherd. At any 
rate it expressed her feelings, when it breathes the hope 
that she would be Lady Keith again when her rightful 
King came back over the water. The young Earl, a sensible 
man, weighing the political chances dispassionately, was 
inclined to accept the Hanoverian dynasty. When the 
Dukes of Somerset and Argyle, by a happy coup d'etat, 
carried the wavering Council along with them, the summary 
proceedings against all suspected of disloyalty alienated 
many hesitating trimmers. When Mar, as a matter of 
necessity, was dismissed from his Secretaryship of State, 



156 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

his cousin Marischal was deprived of his troop of the 
Guards. Hurrying down to Scotland in high indignation, 
he met his brother, then on his way to town to ask for a 
pair of colours. In that meeting James Keith's fate was 
decided, and England lost a great soldier, as France had 
foolishly got rid of Prince Eugene. But the Marshal never 
turned his sword against the country which had given 
him birth. 

The brothers both lived to a good old age, and though 
often parted, remained fondly attached. The elegy by the 
elder when he heard of his brother's glorious death speaks 
volumes for both. He wrote to his intimate friend d'Alem- 
bert, " My brother leaves me a noble legacy. Last year 
he had Bohemia at ransom, and his personal estate is 
seventy ducats." The Marshal only once saw his native 
land again, when he had sundry friendly conversations 
with George II. The Earl returned, but not in the cIft 
cumstances his mother had fondly predicted. Realising 
that the recall of the Stewarts was hopeless, he had made 
his peace with the Hanoverian Court, and was able to send 
Lord Chatham from Madrid a piece of invaluable informa- 
tion. The grateful King received him graciously, and he 
was able to buy back a part of his ancestral domains. But 
the old exile saw the North again with sinking of the heart. 
He passed Stonehaven, where his sea-girt fortress of 
Dunnottar was in ruin, and found his second stronghold 
of Iverugie in Buchan in little better case. He had little 
cause to complain of lack of warmth in his welcome. 
Friends, neighbours, and tenants crowded to meet him at 
Peterhead, and he headed the long and jubilant procession 
which set out for Inverugie. The castle stands on an 



MARSHAL KEITH 157 

eminence encircled by tlie sweep of the Ugie. When he 
saw the roofless wreck of the old halls that had sheltered 
him as a boy, the aged Earl fairly broke down upon the 
bridge ; he drew rein, and unable to restrain his tears, 
sadly turned his horse's head to the South again. He had 
seen much of life at most of the courts of Europe, except 
that of the Empire. But Berlin was naturally the city of 
his predilections, for there he was petted, courted, and 
feted. He made many a friend among statesmen and the 
elite of the literary and intellectual world, but the strongest 
proof of his amiable and fascinating nature is that he seems 
to have been the only man who really won the affections of 
the cold-hearted Frederick. His brother, the Marshal, was 
highly valued, and could take liberties that few other men 
dared venture upon. But for the senior the penurious 
monarch would have drawn his purse-strings more freely 
than the Earl's pride would permit ; he was recalled to 
Potsdam in his seventy-fourth year by the pressing appeals 
of his royal friend ; he found a villa ready for him and 
royally furnished, and there he ended his days in peace. 

The careers of the brothers were so often intermixed ; 
their characters in many respects were so similar, though 
the Earl had no pretension to the Marshal's talent and 
decision, that a slight biographical sketch of the one was 
indispensable as a prelude to the story of the other. We 
can only gather impressions of the Earl at second-hand ; 
the Marshal has left a memoir so interesting, that our 
regret is that it ends with tantalising abruptness. It is 
written in the simple, straightforward, soldierly style, in 
which the Seigneur de Joinville described the romantic 
crusade of St. Louis ; so it is all the better, and in a minor 



158 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

key it is almost as rich in romance. The rebellion of the '15 
and the rash adventure of the saint were equally unlucky, 
though the one was carried out with ample means and the 
mediaeval pomp of chivalry, and the other at haphazard by 
disappointed politicians and desperate men who missed all 
the chances that fortune offered them. The Marshal in the 
memoir looks back with a soldier's eye on the drama in 
which he played a modest part ; he does not spare criticism 
of his superiors, and remarks freely on their strategy and 
blundering tactics. Of much of what he describes he was an 
eye-witness, and the facts within his personal knowledge 
are reliable, for the Marshal was an honest man. 

Of his cousin the Duke of Mar — he gives him his St. 
Germains title — he had no high opinion. He did not trust 
him, and hints that throughout he was playing the political 
game for his own hand. Mar was so ignorant that he 
looked for the duchy of Deux Fonts in a map of Hungary, 
which reminds one of the jubilation of the Duke of New- 
castle, the head of the Ministry, at discovering that Cape 
Breton was an island. But the Jacobite party was 
numerous, discontent was great, and Keith thinks the 
enterprise might have ended differently had it found a 
more capable chief, and been planned with ordinary dis- 
cretion. As it was, it was common talk that there was to 
be trouble from the Highlands, and the King and his 
counsellors had ample warning. " The Earl of Portmore, 
an old experienced officer, who had commanded the English 
army in Portugal," offered to go with Mar to Scotland, 
but as his military rank and experience must have 
given him the command, through Mar's jealousy he was 
left behind. In place of him the Earl brought General 



MARSHAL KEITH 159 

Hamilton as his second in command — brave enough, but 
old, infirm, and incompetent — who miscarried so lamentably 
at Sheriffmuir. 

Mar came with neither men, arms, nor money, but with 
fallacious promises in plenty. There was great and con- 
tagious enthusiasm among the Highlanders at the Hunting ; 
they were men who set small store by their lives, and 
rejoiced in the prospect of pillaging the Lowlands. There 
were not a few nobles of ancient lineage at the muster, 
and some who might have commanded a large following. 
But it was significant that the Dukes of Gordon and Atholl, 
following the good old Scottish fashion of hedging, had 
prudently stayed at home, sending their heirs to represent 
them. It might have been foreseen that, in the event of 
any serious check, the retreat would have been sounded 
for Gordons and Murrays. Most of the peers were men of 
broken fortunes, with lands mortgaged to the last acre, who 
had little to lose. Nevertheless there were generous excep- 
tions. The Earl of Panmure, who proclaimed King James 
at Brechin, had large, unencumbered estates, and the young 
Earl of Strathmore, like the Earl Marischal, hazarded lands 
which yielded a handsome income. Amid all the bustle of 
hasty preparation came the news of King Louis' death, 
and nothing should have been more discouraging. Had 
they cared to look facts in the face, they might have known 
that the astute English Ambassador, the Earl of Stair, was 
persona gratissima with the Regent, but they succeeded in 
befooling themselves into believing that the voluptuous but 
politic d'Orleans would befriend them. Indeed the leaders 
who had committed themselves had gone too far to draw 
back, and the ill-armed and undisciplined levies were 

1 



i6o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

already on their southward march. " By the beginning of 
October we had assembled about 5000 foot and 1200 horse. 
The enemy lay at Stirling under the command of the Duke 
of Argyle, and were about 1000 foot and 800 horse, en- 
camped under the cannon of the castle, where they could 
not be attacked." They could not be attacked, but they 
might have been turned, for Argyle was guarding the Brig 
o' Stirling, and the Forth might easily have been forded by 
the Highlanders higher up. " Oh for one hour of Dundee ! " 
exclaimed an old chieftain at Sheriffmuir, and now either 
Dundee or Montrose would have utilised the Highland 
numbers and elan. But Mar lay in his leaguer at Perth, 
waiting the arrival of the Western mountaineers and the 
islesmen, though supports were fast coming up to the enemy. 
James Keith was boiling over with impatience, resenting 
the inaction. Like the rest, he welcomed any favourable 
report, and one day — he makes no allusion to it himself — 
characteristically he galloped down the lines, shouting that 
Bristol and Newcastle had fallen to their English friends. 
The upshot of all was, that Argyle outmanoeuvred them from 
first to last with forces infinitely inferior, and finally beat 
them in the decisive battle with 3000 men to their 12,000. 

The forward move from Perth was leisurely as usual. 
On the 12th November " the advanced guard lay at Dun- 
blane, and the rest of the troops were quartered about a 
mile behind, the want of the tents and the coldness of the 
weather rendering it impossible for us to encamp," The 
commissariat had been neglected, though they had been 
quartered for weeks in one of the most fertile districts of 
Scotland ; the troops, billeted about in cottages and farm 
steadings, were half famished, and even had the Jacobite 



MARSHAL KEITH i6i 

victory been decisive as it should have been, there were no 
means of following it up. Next morning, at break of day, 
both armies were afoot, and facing each other. " Ours lay 
in two lines, without any body of reserve.'''' Even then the 
hesitating Mar called another council of war, when the 
question was, " To fight or not to fight." He was so far 
relieved of responsibility, that the unanimous resolution 
was for battle, 

" The Duke commanded the Earl Marischal, with Sir 
Donald McDonald's regiment of foot and his own squadron 
of horse, to take possession of the rising ground, on which 
a body of the enemy's horse still remained, and to cover 
the march of the army on the left. On our approach the 
enemy's horse retired, and we had no sooner gained the 
top of the hill, than we discovered their whole body, 
marching without beat of drum about two musket-shot 
from us." There was no retreating ; the Earl Marischal 
sent an aide-de-camp to ask for assistance. The assistance 
came " even in too much haste," for the army, which 
marched in four columns, arrived in such confusion that it 
was impossible to form them according to the line of battle 
projected. Argyle was there in person with Colonel Cath- 
cart, and was prompt to take advantage of the confusion. 
Keith speaks of " the shameful behaviour of the foot," 
which he attributes to their seeing themselves abandoned 
by the horse, who had been ordered from the left to the 
right. If so, the order was the more superfluous, that on 
the right the Highlanders were carrying all before them, 
and in fact one of the fatal mischances of the day was that 
they had broken altogether out of hand. But there is some 
obscurity in his narrative. We know from other sources 



1 62 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

that his brother's squadron remained with their broken 
left, fighting to the last with determined gallantry, and 
covering the flight of the foot with repeated charges. It 
was almost entirely composed of gentlemen. It was then 
the young Earl of Strathmore fell, and that the Earl of 
Panmure was wounded and made prisoner. Keith notes 
another " unlucky mistake," which is much to the credit of 
Argyle's coolness and generalship. When Mar had recalled 
his victorious centre and left, he might have renewed 
the engagement in the afternoon with an overwhelming 
superiority in numbers. The Duke had taken his stand on 
the hill he had won to the right, with battalions scarcely 
numbering a thousand, but by broken ground and turf- 
banks he disguised his weakness, doubling at least his 
apparent strength by the display of colours taken from the 
enemy and closely resembling his own. He deceived the 
Jacobite officer sent to reconnoitre, and the report decided 
Mar to remain resting on his arms. 

Ill news followed fast. The English insurrection had 
been crushed ; 6000 Dutch who had landed were on the 
march for the North ; Huntly and Seaforth, on more or less 
plausible pretexts, had withdrawn to their own counties, 
and malcontents, who had learned wisdom too late, had 
opened negotiations with Argyle to know on what terms 
he would receive their submission. At that crisis, and in 
the depths of an exceptionally severe winter, when the 
hopes of his party were as cold as the weather, the Cheva- 
lier disembarked at Peterhead. Instead of coming with 
a French fleet bringing arms, money, and men, he landed 
from a fishing-boat with a couple of attendants. Born to 
ill-luck, and of a sombre temperament, he was the last man 



MARSHAL KEITH 163 

to animate a dispirited army. The leaders learned that 
nothing was to be expected from France ; the superstitious 
clansmen saw a sinister omen in the shipwreck of the two 
barks that carried their master's baggage. Nevertheless, 
the forlorn adventurer must be received with royal honours. 
Mar set out to meet him, and was eventually accompanied 
by the Keiths, for the brothers were locally associated 
with the brief visit of the Pretender for whom they had 
sacrificed everything. Peterhead was within a mile or two 
of their castle of Inverugie, and they chanced to meet him 
at Fetteresso, one of their former baronies, within sight of 
their dilapidated fortress of Dunnottar. They found him 
prostrated with ague ; they escorted him to the head- 
quarters in Perth, but he never regained either strength or 
spirits, and his sojourn was as short as it was unsatisfactory. 
With the perversity of the Stewarts he did what he could 
to alienate the Lowlands by desolating the fertile belt to 
the south of Perth, as Louis and Louvois had devastated 
the Palatinate. He saw his army dwindle, and the ammuni- 
tion had almost given out. " He consulted the Duke of 
Marr, who positively advised him to return to France," 
and Mar urged many plausible reasons for a flight he had 
already determined to share. However, for very shame's 
sake, he took counsel with others, and " having called for 
the Earl Marischal, told him he desired his advice. The 
Earl excused himself on account of his youth and want of 
experience, but finding himself still pressed, desired that he 
might have leave to speak with the Duke of Marr." Mar 
repeated all he had urged on the Chevalier ; the high- 
spirited Earl, arguing against hope or reason, strove to 
refute all his reasoning, but finally spoke his mind in what 



164 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

was really a counsel of despair. " He did not think it for 
the King's honour, or for that of the nation, to give up the 
game without putting it to the tryall." When he pro- 
tested against a foregone decision, he spoke the feelings of 
the rank and file, who even on the retreat that was ordered 
were still full of fight as ever. When James and his com- 
mander-in-chief took ship at Montrose, skulking down the 
back stairs of their lodging, the Highlanders were furious 
at having been deserted and befooled. From the first the 
demeanour of their monarch might have depressed them. 
He is said to have taunted his devoted adherents by telling 
them that they had lured him to Scotland with the hope 
of a crown when all they had to offer was a grave. Prince 
Eugene's comment on the whole proceedings was charac- 
teristic of that fiery and resolute spirit — " Weeping is not 
the way to win a kingdom." 

The Chevalier's flight was more helpful to his followers 
than his presence had ever been. It gained them a clear 
day in their retreat, for Argyle, when he heard of the 
escape, seems to have slackened the pursuit. If it was his 
wish to spare his unfortunate countrymen unnecessary 
slaughter, that consists with his kindly nature and previous 
conduct. Under General Gordon the half-mutinous Jaco- 
bite army marched undisturbed to Aberdeen. Then another 
council was called to settle the question between a final 
stand against the enemy or a sauve qui pent. The decision 
was scarcely in doubt, and it was finally settled on the 
failure of the Earl Marischal to bring Huntly again into 
the field. The Gordons were making separate terms for 
themselves ; the Keiths saw themselves beggared and 
proscribed. 



MARSHAL KEITH 165 

Then the brothers had very similar adventures to those 
of Charles Edward after Culloden. As in 1746, the remains 
of the Highland host struggled over the mountains to 
Ruthven of Badenoch, whence they scattered to their 
native glens. The Keiths attached themselves to the isle- 
men of Skye, and to the Moidart men who had come east 
with the Captain of Clanranald. They arrived at the 
islands in the middle of March, having lost nearly a 
company of foot in crossing the sea-arm. The ships of the 
Government patrolled the seas, and for a month there was 
no opportunity of escaping. Several frigates were sighted 
off the coast, and they heard that two infantry battalions 
had disembarked at Portree. When all seemed hopeless 
a Breton smuggler ran the blockade, and after " a very 
pleasant passage " they were landed at St. Pol de Leon, 
which with its colleges and cathedral must have greatly 
reminded them of their own Old Aberdeen. 

From St. Pol James Keith went straight to Paris, where 
he found himself among friends and kinsfolk. But most 
were penniless like himself, and all were engrossed with their 
own concerns. His warmest welcome was from Mary of 
Modena, who assured him that neither she nor her son 
could forget all he had done in the Chevalier's service — " in 
a word, had I conquered a kingdom for her, she could not 
have said more." Although he heard nothing more for a 
month, during which he was reduced to selling his horse 
furniture, she had a longer memory than most royal 
personages. For then she sent him 1000 livres, placed him 
at the Military Academy, kindly reminding him that he 
would be the better of some regular training, and within 
a year the youth of nineteen had his commission as a 



1 66 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

colonel of horse, with orders to get ready for an expedition 
to Scotland, where the King of Sweden contemplated a 
descent. He was dazzled by the unexpected promotion, and 
exhilarated besides with the near hope of retrieving the 
family fortunes. But his spirits had only been raised to 
be dashed again, and he had his first experience of many 
disappointments. The secret of the Swedish plans had 
been indifferently kept ; the Regent took effectual means 
to baulk it, and Keith heard no more of his commission. 
At least it had decided him to end h s apprenticeship at 
the Academy and to seek active service. " With noth ng 
to trust to but my sword " he was to turn soldier of fortune. 
His first attempt was a failure, though in the future 
he was to be associated with many a stirring event in 
Russian history. In the midsummer of 1717 the Tsar 
Peter came to Paris to be feted ; his ambitious schemes 
were the talk of the world, and Keith was eager to enter 
his service. How he made his approaches he does not say, 
but he gives the plausible explanation of his want of success, 
that he did not take the right way to ensure it. That he 
got no help from St. Germains was natural enough, and 
flattering besides ; the shadowy court, always dreaming of 
another revolution, had no wish to send helpful men to 
the further confines of Europe. But there was always 
occupation to be found nearer home. In the beginning of 
next year there were preparations for war between Spain 
and the Empire. There was little difficulty in getting 
introductions from King James to Madrid, for the Jaco- 
bites were always glad to keep young soldiers of spirit in 
active training in countries whence they might be easily 
recalled. But Keith dallied for the best part of a year, 



MARSHAL KEITH 167 

and he very candidly gives the explanation. The fact was 
the youth of twenty was as susceptible as the war-worn 
veteran, " I was then too much in love to think of 
quitting Paris, and tho' shame and my friends forced me 
to take some steps towards it, yet I managed it so slowly 
that I set out only in the end of that year ; and had not 
my mistress and I quarrelled, and that other affairs came 
to concern me more than the conquest of Sicily, it's pro- 
bable I had lost many years of my time, so much was I 
taken up with my passion." Nor would he perhaps have 
gone then, had it not been for irresistible pressure. He 
had fallen ill besides — he does not say, from blighted 
affections. It is strange to speculate on what might have 
been his fate, had he remained a love-sick flaneur in the 
streets of Paris, possibly reduced to discreditable shifts by 
an exacting mistress and a scanty purse. But the family 
had powerful friends, and he had a wise brother who would 
not lose sight of him. Cardinal Alberoni, who then governed 
Spain, was furious at the destruction of the Spanish fleet 
off the Sicilian coast by Admiral Sir George Byng without 
any formal declaration of war. The Cardinal had resolved 
to be avenged by helping the Jacobites, and he summoned 
the Duke of Ormonde from Paris. Ormonde in turn sent 
for the Earl Marischal, and specially requested him to bring 
his brother. 

Sailing from Marseilles in the beginning of 17 19, they 
landed at Palamos in Catalonia. Their reception was far 
from cordial. Their answers were unsatisfactory, for they 
only said that they were English officers on their way to 
Madrid in search of employment. In Catholic Spain the 
general feeling then was that for military service no 



1 68 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Protestants need apply, and, as the future field-marshal was 
to learn later, it was an effectual bar to promotion. The 
governor forwarded them, under arrest, to a superior, 
though he courteously assured them that the guard was a 
necessary precaution against brigands. At last they were 
delivered at the quarters of the Duke of Liria, who knew 
them personally, and was ready to vouch for them. But 
as the Duke knew nothing of the proposed descent upon 
England, as to that they kept their own counsel, and they 
begged him not to disclose their names. There were draw- 
backs and advantages in the strict incognito. " We re- 
solved to continue the route slowly to Madrid, without 
fatiguing ourselves by going post," and so the sturdy 
young Scots had themselves carried in chairs to the environs 
of Barcelona. Thence they sent a letter from the Duke of 
Liria to the Prince of Savoy, who commanded in the place. 
It acted as an "Open Sesame." It passed them through 
the gates without challenge or examination, and they 
could not conceive a reason for the distinction with which 
they were treated. To his wonderment James saw a state 
coach with six mules and servants in the royal Savoy 
liveries, draw up at the door of their modest inn. It 
turned out that Liria had kept the secrets confided to him, 
and that the Prince had just received letters from Alberoni 
sa5dng he might expect King James himself, who was to 
land in Catalonia incognito. " I believe the Prince was 
sorry to have given himself so much trouble about us, yet 
he received us very civilly." 

When they waited on the Cardinal at Madrid, he was 
rather out of temper. He asked why they had taken 
things so easily. They answered that they thought there 



MARSHAL KEITH 169 

was no sort of hurry. " Quite the contrary," was the re- 
joinder ; '* the business is pressing, and Ormonde is already 
on his way to the Groine " (Corunna). The Duke was to 
embark for England, the Earl Marischal was to land in 
Scotland, but it was indispensable that they should concert 
together. So the Earl posted off and overtook the Duke 
at Benevente. Five days later he returned to Madrid to 
settle their plans with the Cardinal. The Spanish treasury 
was as usual in low water, but the Earl got half the arms 
he asked for, with six companies of foot to cover his 
landing. There was yet another difficulty. It was neces- 
sary to inform the chiefs of the Jacobites in France of the 
plot that had been hatched in Spain, and as the countries 
were then at war, the French frontiers were strictly guarded. 
Alberoni asked James Keith to charge himself with the 
perilous mission. He had a voucher to the French Jaco- 
bites, in the shape of a blank order from Ormonde, telling 
them to have absolute confidence in the bearer. With that 
letter and 18,000 crowns Keith left Madrid in the middle 
of February. But at San Sebastian he had parted with 
two-thirds of the sum for the equipment of two frigates 
destined for Scotland, so the preparations were on no very 
lavish scale. He was fully alive to the risks he ran, but 
as the affair did not directly concern France, he hoped that 
at the worst he " might be quitte for laying some time in 
prison." He made his way to Bordeaux without inter- 
ference, where he met his former commander. General 
Gordon. But at Bordeaux his troubles began, and by the 
irony of fate the man who threatened to baffle him was 
the son of the monarch he was seeking to restore. James, 
Duke of Berwick, was commanding in Bordeaux for the 



I70 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Regent. He was a man whose sense of military duty was 
not to be swayed either by personal considerations or filial 
affection. He gave passes to none who were not inter- 
viewed by himself or his secretary, and as Keith was well 
known to both, he dared not stand the ordeal. However, 
he found a friend who secured a pass, and he mounted 
behind, between the saddle-bags, as his attendant. 

At Paris, as a matter of course, he was in an atmos- 
phere of intrigue. When some of the leaders hastened 
to visit him, he showed them his credentials from 
Ormonde. They smiled, telling him frankly that the billet 
would not have been worth the paper it was written on, 
had they not already had instructions from Mar to obey 
any orders from the Duke. " This plainly let me see that 
we had two factions amongst us, and which proved the 
occasion of our speedy ruin when we landed in Scotland." 
His forebodings were to be only too surely realised, and 
again, with a sad heart and preparations absurdly inade- 
quate, he embarked on a desperate venture. Their little 
French company sailed from Rouen in a bark of twenty- 
five tons. It was their intention to take their chances in 
the Straits of Dover and run round the Orkneys to the 
Outer Hebrides ; but easterly gales forced them to take 
the westerly course. Off the Land's End in the dusk, they 
were in the middle of a fleet, answering exactly to the 
numbers of that of Ormonde, which at the time might have 
been expected in the chops of the Channel. But the little 
craft very wisely slipped past in silence, for they were 
really with an English squadron transporting troops from 
Ireland. 

In the first week of April they landed on the Lewis, 



MARSHAL KEITH 171 

where the natives knew nothing of any Spanish ships, and 
could give them as Httle intelHgence from the mainland. 
After some anxious waiting Keith found the two frigates 
at moorings in Stornoway, with his brother on board. He 
communicated his suspicions of underhand dealing. The 
Earl showed his commission to command, and handed his 
brother another as colonel in the Spanish service. Next 
day came Tullibardine and Seaforth, and on the following 
morning, at a council of war, Tullibardine produced his own 
commission of lieutenant-general. Then the young Earl, 
perhaps weakly, resigned, though reserving authority over 
the ships, as to which he had positive orders from the 
Cardinal. After that it is a melancholy story of divided 
councils, adverse winds, and unfortunate delays. Keith says 
bitterly that there were demons conspiring to baffle them. 
So much invaluable time had been wasted that the Govern- 
ment had drawn troops even from Holland. When the 
affair was brought to the arbitration of arms, it was a 
skirmish rather than a battle. The disheartened High- 
landers showed none of their customary fire ; they broke, 
and retreated in confusion with comparatively little loss. 
Night gave the leaders time for consultation ; the Spaniards 
surrendered and the Highlanders dispersed. 

" Everybody else took the road he liked best." Keith, 
who was sick of a fever, was forced to lie in hiding in the 
mountains for a month, when he crossed country to his 
ancestral estates, and found a ship at Peterhead which 
carried him to the Texel. At the Hague the brothers 
came together again, and again they set out in company 
for Spain, deciding to pass through France as the route 
least likely to be suspected. But at Sedan they were 



172 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

stopped, as they could show no passports, and were ordered 
off to prison by the town mayor. As, fortunately, they were 
not searched, they destroyed their compromising Spanish 
commissions. Then it occurred to the town mayor that he 
had forgotten to ask their names, and he inquired if they 
had any papers. The Earl showed a note from the Princess 
de Conti which opened the doors of the prison. Thus they 
reached Paris, then in the height of the Mississippi boom, 
so that no one troubled much about the anonymous 
strangers. They parted, to meet once again at Toulouse, 
when the Earl, to his brother's surprise, walked into his 
apartment. Hoping to pass the Pyrenees, he had been 
arrested at Bigorre, and after a six weeks' sojourn in the 
castle, had been released by an order, signed by the child- 
king, accompanied by a passport for Italy and a peremp- 
tory order to leave the kingdom. 

Toulouse was not on the road from Bigorre to Rome, 
but, having an Italian passport, to Rome the brothers re- 
solved to go, and take the opportunity of paying their 
respects to their royal master. Sea voyages might then be 
almost as protracted as the cruise of Ulysses from Ilium 
to Ithaca. The galley of the Genoese Republic, bound 
from Marseilles to Leghorn, buffeted by Hght head winds, 
hugged the coasts as closely as that of the Ithican, con- 
tinually stormbound in the harbours whither it had crept 
for safety. The Genoese of the Middle Ages were daring 
navigators ; Keith says there was no danger, but infinite 
worry, and he solemnly vowed that he never again would 
be tempted to set foot in any craft Italians professed to 
navigate. 

At Rome they had no reason to complain of their 



MARSHAL KEITH 173 

reception. The King took it for granted that they had no 
money, and sent his secretary to the Pope, to beg an 
advance of 1000 scudi on his pension. The Pope dechned, 
on pretence of poverty, which, as Keith remarks, shows how 
Httle regard the churchmen have for those who have 
abandoned all for their religion. However, a money-lender 
was more complaisant, and the wanderers had the means of 
returning to Madrid. Their arrival at Leghorn alarmed 
the English envoy, who threatened the Senate with a bom- 
bardment by the English fleet if they were not summarily 
dismissed. The Keiths were only too willing to go, but 
represented the impossibihty of making a start with an 
English frigate in the offing. They were assured that, if 
they would charter a felucca of fourteen oars, they could 
safely sneak along the Riviera, sleeping comfortably every 
night on shore. The proposal seemed so reasonable that 
they adopted it. 

Penniless in Madrid, James presented himself at the 
War Office to ask for a copy of the colonel's commission 
destroyed at Sedan. From time immemorial suitors in 
Spain have always been kept waiting. Now there was a 
very decent excuse ; that commission, signed in blank by 
the King, had been filled up by Alberoni, now in exile, 
and had never been entered at the War Office. After 
some delay he did get another, but it was as a colonel 
unattached, and though there was a royal order that it 
should carry pay, the pay was never forthcoming. " I 
knew nobody and was known of none ; and had not my 
good fortune brought Admiral Cammock to Madrid, whom 
I had known formerly in Paris, I know not what would 
have become of me ; he immediately offered me his house 



174 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

and his table." Cammock, who had a fellow-feeling for 
refugees, had the good fortune to be a Catholic. He had 
served for years in the British navy, and well merited the 
rank he had won in that of Spain. At the battle gained 
by Byng off Cape Passaro he had commanded a Spanish 
sixty-gun ship ; and had his chief listened to his wise 
advice, he would infallibly have escaped the great 
disaster. 

Two years were idled away ; after failure at Madrid he 
had tried Paris, and vainly attempted, through feminine 
influence, to enter the French service. Early in 1725, when 
the French match with the Infanta of Spain was broken 
off, he " could no longer stay in France with honour, after 
the notification from the Spanish ambassador that all 
officers holding the Spanish commission should leave with 
the Infanta." In 1726 there were rumours of a rupture 
with England. The exile writes as a Spaniard, of the 
fleet that was to intercept our galleons. Troops were 
ordered to Andalusia, and it was evident that they were 
intended to threaten Gibraltar. Keith asked to be em- 
ployed, but had the usual answer, that no Protestant 
could receive a command, whereupon he volunteered. But 
as he despaired of any chance of advancement, he resolved 
it should be his last campaign under Spanish colours. 

He gives a most interesting account of the operations, 
and the carelessness of the garrison might have cost them 
dear. There were not above 1000 men in the place ; there 
was but a slender guard at the landward gate, and the 
Spanish soldiers were actually allowed to swarm into the 
town, without even searching them for arms. A surprise 
would have been easy, but the fortress was saved by a 



MARSHAL KEITH 175 

strange exhibition of the Spanish pride. The Count de 
Las Torres said, " that would the Enghsh give him the 
town, he would not take it but by the breach." The 
Spanish siege train was delayed by the rains ; when it 
came, the batteries were mounted at an impossible dis- 
tance ; when nearer ground was broken, English men-of- 
war had been moored so as to rake the trenches with a 
flanking fire ; reinforcements had been poured into the 
place by the fleet, and after a five months' series of fiascos 
the siege was raised. " All we gained was the knowledge 
that Gibraltar was impregnable by land." 

Keith, though with little hope of success, went back to 
Madrid to play his last card. He asked for a regiment 
through the King's confessor, and had the answer that if 
he would turn Roman Catholic he should have the regi- 
ment and much more. He was neither surprised nor 
greatly aggrieved, for with the bigoted King the refusal 
was matter of principle. Keith represented that, as he 
had no hope of promotion, he must reluctantly quit his 
Majesty's service, and requested a recommendation to the 
Empress of Russia. That was graciously granted, and 
letters were sent to the Duke of Liria, then the Spanish 
ambassador at St. Petersburg, charging him to recommend 
Keith to the sovereign. Nor could he have been better 
befriended. The Duke was an old acquaintance and 
familiar travelling companion. The answer came almost 
by return of post. The Tsar would take him into his 
service with rank of major-general, and the most Catholic 
King gave him 1000 crowns to defray his travelling 
expenses. 

It is to be regretted that the autobiography ends 



176 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

abruptly with 1737. In Russia he passed nineteen of the 
best years of his life, and eventful years they were, both 
for him and the land of his adoption. But in an epoch 
when empresses reigned and their lovers or favourites ruled 
over them, much mention is made of the illustrious Scottish 
soldier, who played a leading part in the wars and rose to 
the rank of field-marshal. Keith was a soldier first, but 
he was also something of a courtier ; as we have seen, he 
was almost as inflammable as Marshal Saxe, and so sus- 
ceptible to the influences of the fair sex that, once at least, 
a woman had well-nigh changed his career. It is said 
indeed, though we give little credence to the report, that 
had not north-country caution tempered his ambition, he 
might have been the consort of the Empress EHzabeth ; 
and when he died a soldier's death in his old age, he was 
as passionately in love with a mistress as when he had 
been a hot-headed youth of twenty in Paris. 

The Russia of 1728 and afterwards offered splendid 
opportunities to gifted foreigners, but if there were great 
chances there were greater risks. Everything depended 
on some woman's smiles. Beggars might rise from the 
dunghill to autocratic rule, like Biron, the base-born Duke 
of Courland, but the higher the eminence to which they 
attained, the more tremendous was the almost inevitable 
fall. Their elevation turned friends into jealous enemies, 
and the relatives of the victims they had been trampling 
under foot, when they dared to find a voice, were clamorous 
for revenge. If the fallen favourite set store by life, he 
might deem himself fortunate in being beggared and 
banished. As a new sultan used to make a clean sweep 
of his male kindred, so the author of every successful 



MARSHAL KEITH 177 

revolution scattered death sentences and orders of exile 
broadcast ; executions were preceded by atrocious refine- 
ments of torture, and the highest order of the orthodox 
Church was no safeguard from being racked in the dungeon 
or broken on the wheel. Shortly before Keith landed at 
Cronstadt there had been one of the most striking examples 
of one of the worst vicissitudes of fortune. Prince Menschi- 
kof^ had been more than the alter ego of the Tsarina 
Catherine. She had given him everything he asked, except 
the single right of succession to the throne in his family, 
but his daughter had been betrothed to the heir apparent. 
Grasping as he was ambitious, charged with all kinds of 
corruption, he had amassed incalculable riches. By the 
will of the Empress he was left standing alone. Regent 
and despotic master of the kingdom. He did not deem 
it worth while to conciliate the boy Tsar or the Tsar's 
favourite sister. A threatening of apoplexy and a short 
illness changed everything ; it was said that the ruthless 
old lion was dying ; his enemies took heart, his friends fell 
away, the Tsar plucked up courage to shake off the yoke, 
Menschikoff's fall from step to step was rapid. First he was 
snubbed, then banished to a distant estate ; order after 
order overtook him as he travelled, each more severe than 
the former. He left St. Petersburg in pomp ; he reached his 
destination closely guarded by subaltern officers of police. 
Palaces in half a dozen of cities, domains and forests in 
thirty-six governments, invaluable jewels and vast sums in 
coin and bullion, were all confiscated by one stroke of the 
pen. He had left the capital with a train of coaches and 
six, and 150 smaller carriages. A few months afterwards, 

in a common kibitka, he exchanged the magnificence of 

M 



1 78 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Oranienbaum for a cabin in Siberia, his baggage pillaged 
by his escort, and left with nothing but the clothes he 
wore. His destination, Berezoff, was in the marshes on 
the Obi, with a winter cold that is said to have shivered 
the window panes ; and there he died. It argues much 
for Keith's prudence that, high as he rose, he never lost his 
footing on those treacherous slopes till he retired, in reason- 
able apprehension, of his own free will and pleasure. 

He had landed at Cronstadt in the autumn of 1728, 
and in October was at Moscow, where his friend and patron, 
the Duke of Liria, presented him to all the principal per- 
sonages. The boy Tsar, as was his habit, was gone 
hunting in the neighbouring forests. He had nominally 
given Keith his commission, but he concerned himself little 
with state affairs, and in his brief reign was but a puppet 
in the hands of favourites and flatterers. Boy as he was, 
with the restless energy of his race he had inherited the 
hard drinking and the amorous susceptibilities of the 
first Peter. He was swayed for good or evil between 
two feminine influences ; between his sister Nathalie and 
Elizabeth the future Empress, respectively styled the 
Minerva and the Venus of the court. Had he listened to 
the wise counsels of Nathalie, it had been better for him. 
But the boy was passionately enamoured of his aunt 
Elizabeth, the woman of many lovers, and she shared his 
passion for field sports, as for dissipation degenerating into 
orgies. Left to himself, it is said, he might have married 
his seductive aunt, born out of wedlock and legitimated by 
her father Peter. But he was as wax in the hands of his 
favourites, the Dolgoroukis, and they betrothed him to a 
daughter of the house. When Keith came to his court, 



MARSHAL KEITH 179 

everything was a chaos ; no master-will had replaced that 
of Menschikoff ; law was in abeyance, life was unsafe, and 
the soldiers had broken loose from all discipline. 

Then, to the consternation of the Dolgoroukis, young 
Peter caught the small-pox and died. In their despera- 
tion, in a family gathering they forged the signature to a 
will, by which Peter, imitating his grandfather and over- 
riding the established order of succession, bequeathed the 
regency to his betrothed. Confronted by the leading 
aristocracy in the Imperial Council, they had never the 
courage to promulgate it. Those notables took matters in 
hand, and made arbitrary choice of a successor. They 
sent to Mitau for the Duchess of Courland, second daughter 
of Ivan, elder brother of the first Peter. They sent at the 
same time a charter of liberties she was compelled to 
subscribe, and brought her to St. Petersburg a constitu- 
tional sovereign. If they had hoped for a Queen Log, they 
found a Queen Stork. Anne, with an imperious temper, and 
smarting under many mortifications, was indignant at the 
restraints imposed. Aided by the jealousies of the lesser 
noblesse, she provoked an /tneute of the Pretorian Guards, 
who always found their account in devotion to unlimited 
autocracy. It was no longer a question of constitutional re- 
straint, and the oligarchy who had hoped to govern were in 
terror of their lives. Not without reason, for though the new 
Empress took her vengeance leisurely, every man of them was 
sentenced to banishment or death. As for the Dolgoroukis, 
lately all-powerful, they were beggared, sent to Siberia, or 
doomed to death with refinements of torture. 

With the new reign began a golden age for such foreign 
adventurers as the Scottish soldier. Germans were in the 



i8o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

ascendant. No sooner was Anne seated firmly on the 
throne than she sent a courier post-haste to Mitau to 
fetch her paramour Biron, whom she had reluctantly left 
behind. The name had been Frenchified, but the proper 
spelling was Biihren. He came of a Westphalian stock 
which had emigrated to Courland, but was of such doubtful 
rank that, though he afterwards became sovereign of the 
countr)^ the council of the duchy had refused to rank him as 
noble. His wife was complaisant ; his relations with the new 
Empress were notorious, so much so that the maternity of 
the Biron children was doubtful. Throughout the life- 
time of Anne he ruled Russia with a rod of iron, accumu- 
lating enmities on all sides. Ostermann, another German, 
crafty and cautious, was charged with foreign affairs. 
Always intriguing against those in place and power, he 
invariably took to bed in moments of crisis, shirking all 
active responsibility. Field-Marshal Munich, Minister at 
War and Commander-in-Chief, was of a very different stamp. 
A typical soldier of fortune, who had served in the armies 
of France, Hesse, and Saxony, he had made his debut in 
Russia as a civil engineer. By an audacious accepting of 
the responsibilities from which Ostermann shrank, he had 
attracted the notice of Peter the Great, who found in him 
a man after his own heart. A Condottiere who had no 
scruples and ignored all obstacles, like Peter, when pushing 
forward military enterprises, he set slight value on either 
lives or money. He knew it himself, and there was no 
reproach to which he was more sensitive than that of 
playing fast and loose with the lives of his soldiers. There 
are experts who have ranked him with Prince Eugene, and 
the two had some qualities in common. He took Keith 



MARSHAL KEITH i8i 

by the hand at once, and Keith certainly owed him much, 
and seems for a time to have been as devoted to him as 
his aide-de-camp Manstein, though they fell apart at the 
coup d'etat which raised Elizabeth to the throne. 

There never was a time when there was a sharper 
dividing line between the household troops, the corps 
d' elite, and the regiments of the line. The men of the 
latter were soldiers for life, the duty was detested, the pay 
was always in arrear, the clothing was ragged, desertions 
were frequent, and discipline was lax. That must be 
remembered in considering the campaigns ; but then, as 
now, the moujiks in uniform would march to death with 
stolid fatalism. The regiments of the Guard, on the con- 
trary, quartered in the capital, were paid and petted as 
possible instruments in some imminent revolution. Not 
a few of the privates were of noble or gentle birth. 
Munich's own regiment, the famous Preobrajenski Guards, 
was devoted to him ; but nothing had made him more 
generally unpopular at headquarters than his proposal to 
scatter these gentlemen through the provinces and give 
them commissions in the line. When Keith came to court, 
one of the Dolgoroukis, a field-marshal, gave him com- 
mand of two foot regiments quartered near Moscow. He 
modestly asked a delay of three months, till he should get 
some notion of the methods of the service. It does not 
appear that he had taken over the command before the 
revolution, and then, to the general amazement, he was 
given a newly-levied regiment of Guards. A command in 
the Guards was one of the most important trusts in the 
Empire, and according to Manstein the new regiment was 
enrolled as a check on the older ones, when aU was suspicion. 



1 82 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

" All Moscow," says Keith, " was as much surprised as I 
was myself." The Empress lost no time in imposing the 
oath exacted by Peter the Great, leaving it to the reigning 
autocrat to settle the succession. Keith had orders to 
administer it to his regiment, and then to all the troops 
of the line in garrison. They took it to a man without hesi- 
tation, but Dolgorouki who had signed Keith's commission 
showed temper, and was said to have spoken disrespectfully 
of the Tsarina herself. Whereupon he was seized, tried, and 
sentenced, and although the death penalty was graciously 
commuted, he followed the rest of his family into exile. 

The military council presided over by Munich had 
framed a scheme of army organisation, with an inspector- 
general and three deputies. Keith was appointed one of 
the deputies, and was charged with the department of the 
south-east. He left Moscow, where he had been in com- 
mand of the garrison, and in the course of six months he 
reviewed thirty-two regiments and travelled 1500 leagues. 
He returned to the capital to find " everything in move- 
ment " over the disputed Polish succession. Stanislas 
Leckinski was the French candidate, and he could count on a 
great majority in the Polish Diet ; but France was far away, 
and Austria and Russia favoured the Elector of Saxony. 
It was resolved at St. Petersburg to rush the country 
before a king could be chosen, though the march of an army 
corps under General Lacy only precipitated the election. 
But the reign of Stanislas was as short and his supremacy 
as shadowy as that of the unfortunate Frederick, " the 
Winter King " of Bohemia. He fled to the strong fortress 
of Dantzic, whither he was followed by the Russians under 
Munich and Lacy. 



MARSHAL KEITH 183 

Meantime the Empress had despatched other forces to 
march on Warsaw and invade Lithuania. Keith passed the 
Dneiper on the ice in the depth of winter, with six battahons 
of foot, a regiment of dragoons, and 4000 Cossacks, There 
was no fighting, but rumours of formidable Pohsh musters 
had alarmed the court, and Keith was superseded by 
Prince Shahofski, who arrived with strong reinforcements. 
The Prince was kept inactive by short supplies, and he 
devoted his involuntary leisure to devastating the country 
around. Keith was detached with 3000 Cossacks on the 
duty ; he did what he could to avoid it, but his superior 
was peremptory. He swept in cattle by the thousand and 
half-starved horses by the hundred, but wherever he turned 
he found villages deserted, and in his reports he said that, 
if the devastation went on, their own troops on their 
advance would risk dying of hunger. He repeatedly 
volunteered advice which was as often rejected. Some of 
his personal adventures were exciting and amusing. At 
Medzibeg, for example, he understood that the governor 
had orders to receive him and his troops and ask for safe- 
guards. Accordingly he was met with all honours without 
the walls, and escorted to the castle-palace of Prince 
Schartorinski, the Seigneur of the place. He rode straight 
to the castle with only twenty-four troopers, where he 
found the garrison under arms with drums beating and 
colours flying. He saw he had fallen into a trap, and that 
the only way of escape was to put a good face on the 
matter. He sent his adjutant for his " equipage," ordering 
him to mix 150 grenadiers with the waggons, which gives- 
an idea of the encumbrances with which Russian com- 
manders were wont to take the field. Fortunately for him. 



184 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

his baggage train entered in time : " had they shut the 
gate before their arrival, I had certainly remained a 
prisoner." Then Prince Shahofski in turn was superseded 
by the Prince of Hesse-Homburg, who was afterwards to 
give Munich so much trouble in his Turkish war. The 
Prince was one of those high-born soldiers who would not 
obey, but had no genius for command. And it was a 
peculiar force he had under him ; there were but six 
battalions of foot, all the others were dragoons or Cossacks. 
It was a warfare of foraging, scouting, and skirmishing ; 
of blockading strong places with no siege train, trusting 
to surprises, starvation, or factions within the enceinte; 
for there was no sharp dividing line in the country between 
the partisans of Stanislas and those of the Saxon Elector. 
When the army went into winter quarters, it had been 
so far successful that Eastern Poland from the Sanne to 
the Dneiper was in Russian occupation, and there abruptly 
ends Marshal Keith's autobiographical fragment. 

In the spring of 1735, the Polish question had been so 
far settled that the bulk of the troops were withdrawn. 
The restless Empress found them occupation elsewhere. 
In answer to an appeal of the Emperor Charles she realised 
an ambition of Peter the Great, and sent a corps d' elite to 
show the Russian colours on the Rhine. Count Lacy went 
in command, and Keith was his second as lieutenant-general. 
The march lay through Bohemia and the Upper Palatinate, 
and Manstein says that every one was in admiration of 
their fine physique and splendid discipline. It was but a 
.military promenade ; no shot was fired, but they came 
back with credit and a sensible increase of Russian prestige. 
Her military and political triumphs turned the Empress's 



MARSHAL KEITH 185 

head. She was set on reahsing another of the great Peter's 
dreams, and the result was the costly war with Turkey — 
costly in hves and wasteful of treasure. It had been in 
contemplation ever since her accession. In 1732 Keith as 
inspector-general had had orders to review the troops and 
examine the stores collected in the frontier places and to 
replenish the magazines in case of deficiency. As might 
have been expected, he found that most of the stores were 
spoiled ; that the clothes had rotted and the arms rusted. 
He did what he could to put things in better order, and 
gathered in vast quantities of corn. The Polish troubles 
had delayed hostilities, but now it was determined to open 
the attack, the rather that Turkey was committed to a 
war with Persia. 

In the autumn of 1734 General Leontow marched for 
the Crimea with 20,000 men and orders to put everything 
to fire and sword. He had not time to do any great damage 
before winter set in and he retired, leaving half his men 
behind him. Next year, with a more powerful army and 
somewhat better organised. Marshal Munich took the field 
in person. He did not fare much better than Leontow, 
although through the summer he waged desultory warfare 
with varying fortunes. He had many difficulties to contend 
with. His losses in battle were not great, but the soldiers 
died hke flies from hunger, thirst, and exhausting marches. 
Epidemics broke out in his camps, and it is noted that 
the men used to sour black bread were actually poisoned 
when they had to fall back on sweet wheaten flour. We 
have seen what Keith's baggage train as a simple general 
was in Poland, and the number of ox-waggons, beasts of 
burden, and camp-followers with Munich has been seldom 



1 86 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

exceeded by any Indian army. The depleted ranks had 
to be replenished, and when Keith led back Lacy's 10,000 
from the Rhine, he marched them straight to the Ukraine, 
where they went into winter quarters. 

In April 1737 the army was over the Dnieper, Keith in 
command of his own Rhenish corps. Its objective was 
Ockzakow. The Cossacks came in touch with the Tartar 
horsemen, who were driven back after a sharp skirmish. 
The Marshal held a council of war, in which it was resolved 
to push the siege before the Ottoman army could come 
to the relief. The Turks on their side were not inactive, 
for the council was broken up by a sally of the garrison. 
Munich was on his mettle, though he had missed his fleet, 
which was to come down the Dnieper, and was conse- 
quently in want of everything. There was not even wood 
for fires or for the making of fascines. Within a distance 
of eight leagues around everything had been wasted, even 
to pasturage for the horses. But 5000 pioneers were at 
once set to work to throw up redoubts and form lines of 
circumvallation behind the Russian trenches. The parallels 
were pushed forward ; the Turks were driven from their 
advanced posts, and forced to take refuge behind the inner 
palisades. A lively cannonade was kept up ; the town 
was seen to be in flames in several places, though the fires 
were speedily extinguished. But before daybreak on the 
13th JulJ^ there was a blaze which illuminated the town, 
and the flames were spreading fast. Whereupon the Marshal 
sent orders to Keith, who was in the centre attack and 
the nearest to the defences, to advance within musket-shot 
of the glacis and keep up a continual fire. Keith returned 
for answer that he was already within musket-shot, as he 



MARSHAL KEITH 187 

knew to his cost, for though his men were behind the 
redoubts, many had been killed or wounded. The Marshal 
simply repeated his orders, and shortly afterwards became 
more urgent, ordering the troops to leave their shelter and 
fire without cover. It will be remembered that Munich 
was specially sensitive on the charge of wasting the lives 
of his men. On this occasion, Keith again protested, but 
obeyed. To do the Marshal justice, if he sacrificed others 
he never spared himself. Scarcely had Keith got his 
soldiers out of the redoubts than another aide-de-camp 
reached him to say that Munich himself, with Biron and 
the Guards, were already at the foot of the glacis on the 
right, and he hoped Keith would follow the example. 
Lowendal on the left had the same order, and advancing, 
he joined Keith. At the bottom of the glacis they were 
brought up by a ditch twelve feet broad, and they had 
nothing to bridge it, nor had they ladders to scale the 
counterscarp. Yet there they stayed for a couple of hours, 
exposed to the hottest fire, which would have been more 
deadly had they not been so near, till at last the dis- 
heartened survivors, after endless futile efforts, made a 
rush back to the redoubts and the gardens in which they 
had bivouacked the night before. 

Marshal Munich was in despair. But the progress 
of the conflagration brought a sudden turn of the wheel 
of fortune. The fire had reached the great powder 
magazine, which blew up, spreading destruction through 
half the town, and burying 6000 soldiers beneath the 
ruins. Thereupon the Seraskier hung out the white 
flag. No terms were granted, and there was a general 
massacre. Most of the defenders who were not put to 



t88 soldiers of FORTUNE 

the sword were drowned in their attempts to swim the 
river. 

Munich, though successful, was deeply mortified. It was 
by luck, not skill, that the place was taken. Seeking a 
scapegoat, he found one in Keith, for whom now he had 
no great liking. He protested that the attack had failed 
owing to Keith's over-vivacity, though that had been due 
to his own initiative. He made the charge to the Prince 
of Brunswick, in presence of other generals. The Scotsman 
was not there, nor was he in condition to defend himself, 
but when he was informed of what had passed, he sent a 
message to the Marshal, saying that aU he had done was 
by his orders, and demanding a council of war or a court- 
martial. He added that he gladly welcomed an oppor- 
tunity of indicating the mistakes that had been made in 
the beginning of the operations. The Marshal came to him 
next morning, apologetic and effusive of praises, " Sir," 
he said, "it is to you we are partly indebted for the success 
of this great enterprise." Keith answered dryly, " I beg 
your pardon, sir, I do not pretend to the least honour, 
having done nothing but obey your orders." 

Keith was in no condition to defend himself actively, 
for with a bullet in the knee he was lying helpless on his 
camp bed. The Russian surgery was rough and ready, 
and the only idea was amputation. Keith was loath to 
part with the limb, and would not hear of it. We have no 
details, but he must have lain crippled for months, and 
nothing but a strong constitution could have pulled him 
through. We know that there was time for the news to 
reach his brother at Valentia, when the Earl made all haste 
to Ockzakow. The patient could be moved, though the 



MARSHAL KEITH 189 

journey must have been a severe ordeal, and he was taken 
to the Baths of Bareges, famous a century before for the 
heahng of gunshot wounds. The cure was effective, for 
there was no further inconvenience. It was then that the 
brothers visited England, and that the General had private 
audiences of the King. The wound had more important 
consequences. Travelling from Russia to France, the 
brothers passed through Berlin, where they were received 
with exceptional honours. The eccentric King was cordial, 
and it was then that General Keith made the acquaint- 
ance of the Crown Prince, his future friend and master. 

Back in Russia Keith had the command in the Ukraine, 
where his mild but resolute rule made him generally 
popular. Yet there was the iron hand under the silken 
glove. A Wallachian Prince, commanding a regiment in 
the Russian service, on his way to St. Petersburg from 
Munich's army, was passing through Poland. Count 
Potocky, the Crown General, was a relation of his own, 
nevertheless the Prince was seized and thrown into a 
dungeon, and he had information that he was to be handed 
over to the Turks, when his probable fate would be that 
of Marsyas. He found means to communicate with Keith, 
who sent a peremptory demand for his release. The Crown 
General prevaricated, denying possession of the prisoner, 
but finally setting him at liberty, and escorting him in 
person to the frontiers of the Ukraine. As it happened, 
Keith had reason to repent his action. The Prince, having 
been detached by Munich to do duty on the Danube, took 
the bit in his teeth and turned back into Poland, where he 
ravaged the domains of his cousin the Crown General, com- 
mitting the most shameful atrocities. Even then, when 



I90 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

wars were not waged with rose-water, the raid made 
immense noise and scandal, and the Empress had to pay 
heavy damages to avert another PoUsh war. 

Keith's departure from the Ukraine was deeply re- 
gretted. Manstein says that, although he was only there 
for a year, he had done more in the time than any of his 
predecessors in ten. He had even put his wild Cossacks 
in some sort of training, and the people complained that, 
having once given them so good a governor, he ought to 
have been left. But the Court cared little for good ad- 
ministration, and the General's military services were 
wanted elsewhere. 

Trouble had been brewing between Russia and Sweden ; 
war seemed imminent, and for once Russia was preparing 
for eventualities. Troops were being moved to the frontiers ; 
the fleet was being refitted, and the magazines replenished. 
There was an interlude while great events were passing 
at St. Petersburg. The Empress Anne had died ; the 
infant Ivan of Brunswick, doomed to a life of misery and 
a living death, had been declared Emperor by the will of 
the late Empress, and by the same testamentary disposi- 
tion the omnipotent favourite Biron had been constituted 
Regent. In a few weeks, thanks to the jealousy of his 
old ally and bosom friend, Marshal Munich, Biron was 
surprised in his bed and sent summarily off to the further 
confines of Siberia. The Duchess Anne of Brunswick, 
mother of the child-Emperor, assumed the Regency, and 
her consort was proclaimed Generalissimo of the forces. 
Munich, to whom they owed their supremacy, vain- 
gloriously paraded a power above the throne ; he fell 
naturally into disfavour ; disgraced, he was sent to follow 



MARSHAL KEITH 191 

Biron to Siberia, where for twenty years he occupied the 
quarters of the exiled Duke of Courland. 

Russia had been preoccupied with these domestic affairs, 
but now the court was awakened to urgent warnings from 
their minister at Stockholm. The Regent summoned Lacy 
and Keith to St. Petersburg. It was resolved to form two 
corps d'arm^e. The first, under these two generals, was to 
enter Finland immediately on the impending declaration 
of war. On the 22nd July the first camp was formed 
under Keith at Wybourg, almost a suburb of the capital. 
There were eight regiments of horse and foot, and they 
were reviewed by the generalissimo and Lacy. A month 
later, on the little Emperor's birthday, Keith ordered the 
troops under arms to hear the declaration of war. He 
briefly addressed each of the battalions, exhorting each 
soldier to do his duty and augment the glories of the 
Russian arms. The next day the march began. The 
force was nearly doubled by regiments from Wybourg, and 
the men carried bread for fifteen days. Two days more 
and the army was on the frontier, when Lacy arrived to 
take over the command. 

On the ist of September the frontier was passed. So 
impracticable was the country, with its woods and swamps, 
that the army could only advance in a single column. At 
night, when they lay on their arms, there was one of those 
night alarms when trivial causes scare the steadiest troops, 
as we learned from our own Peninsular experiences. Some 
Swedish scouts had crept through the woods, till they were 
challenged and fired at by one of the sentinels. The 
regiments of the second hne sprang to their feet, opening 
a lively fire on their comrades in front. They seem to 



192 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

have fired high, for but a few were killed and wounded. 
Nevertheless the scare might have had fatal consequences, 
for Lacy and Keith were sleeping between the lines, and 
the tents in which they had lain down were riddled. As 
it was, the fusillade gave Wrangel, the Swedish general, 
notice of the enemy's approach. The fortified town of 
Wilmanstrad was the immediate object of the Russians. 
Some hundreds of the dragoon horses had torn loose from 
their picket-pins. The volleys in the camp had startled 
an advance guard of the Swedes, and when the thunder 
of approaching hoofs intimated a cavalry charge, they 
turned and fled full speed for the town. The horses came 
hard on their heels, and entered with them before the 
bridges could be raised. Not only had a Russian regiment 
been dismounted, but Wrangel, when he heard the firing, 
sent immediate intelligence to his colleague Buddenbrog, 
and hurried forward himself to the relief of the town. It 
would have been well for him had he not taken the alarm. 
He had no answer from his colleague, but took up a posi- 
tion facing the Russians and commanding the town. In 
the battle that ensued Lacy attacked with slight regard to 
formation, and apparently with no plan. Keith led the 
right wing, and Manstein, who was under him, writes as an 
eye-witness and leading actor. Keith sent two of his 
regiments to storm the batteries, which were seriously 
annoying him. The regiments, who had to plunge into 
a ravine and climb a counterscarp, recoiled in disorder. 
Then Keith detached Manstein on a flanking movement 
under cover of the woods. It was so successful that the 
Swedes, abandoning their positions, broke and fled for the 
town. The batteries they had abandoned were out of 



MARSHAL KEITH 193 

action, till they were captured and turned against themselves. 
Everywhere the battle went in favour of the Russians, and 
Wrangel's soldiers were taken or slaughtered almost to a 
man. Nor did their misfortunes end there. A parle- 
mentaire sent to summon the place was killed by a shot 
from the ramparts. His death roused the Russians to 
fury. Wilmanstrand was stormed, its defenders put to the 
sword ; subsequently the city was razed to the ground and 
the miserable inhabitants transported to Russia. 

Manstein attributes the victory to Keith, but says both 
the Swedish generals were seriously to blame. Wrangel 
neglected the most ordinary precautions, and Buddenbrog 
was rightly sentenced to death by court-martial for having 
failed to come to his assistance. Both Swedes and Finns 
would seem to have deteriorated lamentably since the 
Thirty Years' War. The night after the battle there was 
a more disgraceful panic in Buddenbrog's camp than that 
which had roused Keith and Lacy. A few dragoons, 
fi5dng from Wilmanstrand, charged down on the advanced 
pickets. The sentry challenged and had no answer ; he 
fired his carbine, threw himself on his horse and rode for 
the camp. The fugitives followed, the pickets got mixed 
with them, and so general was the alarm that in a few 
minutes all Buddenbrog's soldiers were scattered through 
the woods. He and his staff were left in charge of the 
camp, and next day they had the greatest difficulty in 
gathering the men back to the colours. Yet Wilmanstrand, 
says Manstein, was the only battle in which the Swedes 
showed any valour in the whole comrse of the war. 

For the war was to go on, though for the present the 
Russians withdrew behind the frontier without following up 

N 



194 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

their advantage. Lacy returned to St. Petersburg, leaving 
Keith in command. The army was in winter quarters ; 
Keith had a summons from the Marshal to a council of 
war, but had scarcely reached the capital when he was 
recalled by news of menacing Swedish movements. We 
know not whether he was aware of the great events im- 
pending. By a strange and happy coincidence he left 
St. Petersburg the day before the coup d^etat that placed 
Elizabeth on the throne. It may have been well for him 
that he was temporarily out of the way, for though the 
conspiracy was engineered by Frenchmen, the daughter of 
Peter was raised to power on a rush of reaction. There 
was a proscription of the foreigners. Munich, Ostermann, 
and three others of scarcely less note were sentenced to 
the axe or the wheel, and only reprieved on the scaffold 
after a grim burlesque that might have been fatal to men 
of weaker nerve. Honours were showered on the Russian 
Revolutionists. Not content with what had been done, 
the Preobrajenski regiment of guards, who had been in the 
forefront of the plot and to whom Elizabeth had made 
special promises, clamoured for the massacre of all the 
strangers. Foreigners of all nations were hunted in the 
streets, and even one of Lacy's aides-de-camp was so mis- 
handled that he nearly died of his wounds. 

When the war with Sweden recommenced in spring, 
Keith had his own experience of the troubles. The rioters 
in St. Petersburg had sent agents to the army, where the 
regiments of the guards set the example of mutiny. Borrow 
in his " Bible in Spain " tells how Quesada, single-handed 
— followed only by two orderlies — quelled a tumult in 
Madrid. He adds, " Who by his single desperate courage 



MARSHAL KEITH 195 

and impetuosity ever before stopped a revolution in full 
course ? " Manstein, a good judge of manhood, as the 
Great Frederick had reason to know, places Keith on a level 
with Quesada. The mutineers had gone straight to their 
German general's tent. They missed the general, but they 
mastered the guard, abused the staff, and maltreated the 
servants. They shouted that all foreigners should be 
massacred ; they had broken away from all control, for 
their own officers would not approach them. Then Keith 
rode up. " He threw himself, without the least hesitation, 
into the thickest of the mutinous troops. He seized with 
his own hand one of the mutineers. He ordered a priest 
to be called to confess him, saying he would have him shot 
on the spot, . . . Scarce had he pronounced these words, 
with that firmness which is natural to him, before the 
whole band dispersed and ran each to hide himself in his 
tent. Keith ordered a call of the rolls, that the absent 
should be taken into custody." Manstein adds, that had 
it not been for the spirited determination of the Scot, the 
revolt must have spread, since no Russian officer would 
have undertaken to face the rage of the soldiery. 

The disturbance seems to have passed and left no trace. 
After summary chastisement had fallen on the ringleaders, 
the rank and file returned to discipline. The Russians 
advanced, driving the Swedes out of a succession of strongly 
defensible positions, and the chase was followed up to Hel- 
singfors. Finally a Swedish army of 17,000 men capitulated 
to numbers barely superior. Finland was abandoned ; ten 
Finland regiments were disarmed and disbanded ; and 
Keith, who was appointed governor of the province, went 
into winter quarters at Abo with a force deemed sufficient 



196 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

to hold it. Manstein suggests various reasons for the 
humihating surrender. Yet the fact remains that those 
degenerate Finns were the descendants of the great 
Gustavus' famous cuirassiers. 

The war was resumed in 1743 to compel the Swedes to 
accept all the hard Russian conditions. But that year it 
was chiefly fought on the sea and the sea-fjords, and 
Keith figured in the novel character of Admiral, with 
Lacy still in supreme command. In May he left Abo, 
joined his galleys to those of another flotilla, and decided 
to offer the enemy battle. But he had to count with 
winds and calms and dangerous navigation among shoals 
and islands, and operations dragged on, though the Swedes 
had the worst of it. When Lacy had joined him, and they 
might have dealt a decisive blow, supplies were scarcely 
to be had on any terms, and both combatants were nearly 
starving. Consequently it was a welcome announcement 
in midsummer that the preliminaries of a peace had been 
signed, and that there was to be an immediate suspension 
of hostilities. The troops were to be withdrawn from 
Finland, and Keith returned to Abo to make the necessary 
arrangements. With a hitch in the negotiations came 
counter-orders, and Keith when half-way home was sent 
back to Helsingfors with thirty galleys. 

Meantime in Sweden there had been revolt in Dale- 
carlia, and the Danes had been massing troops on their 
Swedish frontiers. The King and the Senate turned for 
help to the Russians, to oppose the Danes and to quell the 
internal troubles. Keith was now to turn diplomatist, and 
had orders to repair to Stockholm, taking his 11,000 soldiers 
with him. He was to make his reports and take his orders 



MARSHAL KEITH 197 

from the King, but was fully accredited as Russian envoy. 
It was a boisterous voyage, and Manstein says that " any 
other man would hardly have been able to execute this 
expedition. He had not only to contend with the violence 
of the storms and the intensity of the cold, but also with 
the officers of the marine who were often representing the 
impossibility of proceeding in so severe a season." Keith 
received the remonstrances, put them in his pocket, and 
renewed the signals for going straight ahead. Nine months 
were passed in Sweden, when the foreign difficulties having 
been amicably arranged, he and his troops were recalled. 
He brought his fleet to Revel in the middle of August. 

The remainder of his stay in Russia may be briefly dis- 
missed. On his return the successful Admiral and envoy 
was received with all honour, and for a time he stood so 
high in the favour of the Empress that scandal was busy 
with their relations. Naturally, both as favourite and 
foreigner, he made many enemies in influential quarters. The 
most formidable was Bestucheff, the new Vice-Chancellor. 
Little by little he was deprived of his commands and 
emoluments ; in 1747 the man who had governed the 
Ukraine and administered conquered Finland, had only 
two regiments of militia. He knew well that after such a 
glissade he might any day follow Munich and Ostermann 
to Siberia, The cup of his disappointment and discontent 
overflowed when in December a Russian army was to 
march for the Rhine to aid the Austrians against the 
French. When Lacy, who had the first claim, had dechned 
the leading, Keith should naturally have had the refusal, 
had it been a question of the most experienced and dis- 
tinguished general. To his disgust, the choice fell on 



198 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Prince Repuin, and it came as another warning to be gone. 
He had another grievance which assured him of his loss 
of favour, had he doubted it. He had soKcited a place for 
his brother the Earl. " We have Marshals enough," was the 
curt answer of the Empress. 

If Keith was disgusted, another and a greater soldier 
was delighted. Frederick of Prussia had never lost sight 
of him since years before they had met at Potsdam. Since 
then Frederick had waged the war of the Pragmatic 
Sanction, and knowing that the peace was but an indefinite 
truce, he had kept a watchful eye on his Russian neigh- 
bours and on the ablest of the soldiers of fortune who had 
been disciplining them. His envoys were at St. Peters- 
burg, less for diplomacy than to send minute information 
as to all that was going on, and he had followed the decline 
of Keith with warm personal interest. 

Keith left the land of his adoption without beat of 
drum and with no formal leave-takings. He passed the 
frontier incognito and travelled unostentatiously to Ham- 
burg. Thence he sent Frederick a letter with a proffer of 
his services ; the answer was prompt and to the point, and 
flattering as he could possibly have desired. He was to 
have the rank of Field-Marshal ; the pay was £1200 a 
year, with everything else suitable to his standing. And 
the pay was good, when ambassadors at Paris or Vienna 
had to keep up their state on £800 or £900. The King 
received him with open arms, and in a few weeks he wrote 
to his brother that he dined almost daily at the royal 
table. " He has more wit than I have wit to tell you ; 
speaks intelligently on all subjects, and I am much mis- 
taken if with the experience of four campaigns he is not 



MARSHAL KEITH 199 

the best officer in his army." But he adds that the King 
was a man who kept his own secrets, for the Marshal was a 
shrewd judge of character. 

The more he was known, the more he was valued. 
Two years afterwards he was Governor of Berhn, with 
increased pay and allowances. Though in the meantime 
all seemed peaceful enough, the King had been making 
ready for probable trouble. In 1757 the storm broke, with 
all the world except his uncle of England against him. It 
was a war got up by the women he had offended, and it 
would be hard to say whether the Austrian Empress, the 
Tsarina, or Madame de Pompadour hated him the most. 
Consequently there was no hope of conciliation, though he 
attempted it at Vienna to put himself in the right. Coolly 
calculated, his ruin seemed assured, but at least he had 
done everything to meet the shock. His army of 150,000 
was perfection ; it had been trained and drilled by such 
gifted generals as old Schwerin and Frederick of Brunswick, 
the Duke of Brunswick Bevern, Moritz of Dessau, and 
Marshal Keith, 

The question was whether to wait or strike. Policy 
dictated the one : strategical considerations the other 
England had been holding him back, but a decision was 
now urgent. Frederick's own mind was made up, but he 
consulted his most trusted generals. With what know- 
ledge they had they argued that as the future was in- 
scrutable, it would be well to wait still. But when 
Frederick showed the secret papers in his possession, old 
Schwerin broke out, " If it must be war, let us march 
to-morrow ; let us seize Saxony and form magazines for 
our campaign in Bohemia." 



iibo SOLDliERS OF FORTUNE 

All was in readiness when what was practically an 
answer to what was virtually an ultimatum came from 
Vienna. Three columns crossed the frontiers. In contrast 
to the endless Russian baggage trains, there were to be 
no unnecessary encumbrances. There was to be but a 
single cart per company ; not even a general was to be 
permitted an ounce of plate ; and so minutely did the 
King attend to the welfare of the troops that each captain 
was ordered to take a cask of vinegar to correct the water 
when the quality was doubtful. Keith was with the 
central column, which directed itself on Dresden. There 
he was charged with a delicate duty. Frederick had 
broken the peace and was apparently the aggressor, but 
he knew there were documents in possession of the Queen 
of Poland which would amply justify him, and these he 
was determined to secure. That the Queen should remain 
in Dresden was not unnatural ; but it is strange that those 
precious papers should not have been sent to the fortress 
of Konigstein, whither Saxon archives and the treasures 
of the Schatzkammer were invariably transported in times 
of peril. Keith offered his master's homage to her 
Majesty. She bitterly complained of her doors being beset 
by Prussian soldiers. Keith, it is to be presumed, answered 
respectfully, but next morning she found the sentries doubled 
and the corridors patrolled. An officer presented himself, 
who was polite but inflexible ; and Frederick secured the 
papers which had a startling effect on European opinion. 

The Saxon army, 16,000 strong, was formidably en- 
trenched in the Saxon Switzerland. Their camp was not 
to be stormed, and though time was precious, the only 
alternative was to starve them out. But the Austrians 



MARSHAL KEITH 201 

under Broun ^yere advancing to the relief of their aUies, 
and Keith with 30,000 men was sent to watch the passes 
leading out of Bohemia. Keith manoeuvred warily with 
inferior forces, but Broun was pressing, for he had per- 
emptory orders to relieve the Saxons at any cost. Frederick 
with strong reinforcements hurried to the point of danger. 
Keith's camp was broken up and the King marched to 
meet the Austrian Marshal. They met in the bloody 
battle of Lobositz. Frederick, coming up in the evening, 
had seized twin hills and the intervening pass, whence he 
looked down on the Austrians. Broun had reason next 
day to regret that he had left those hills undefended. The 
morning opened in dense mists. Frederick ordered a 
cavalry charge in the dark, which was repulsed with heavy 
loss and which put his horse out of action for the time. 
Yet when the mists were lifting, accustomed to Austrian 
over-caution, he fancied that Broun was retiring, and that 
he was only confronted by a rearguard. He found out 
his mistake, and seldom has there been a more fiercely 
contested action. Prussian stubbornness prevailed in the 
end, after seven hours of hand-to-hand fighting, and the 
honours of the day were with the Duke of Brunswick 
Bevern. " Never have my troops," said Frederick, " done 
such miracles of valour ; " but it was less satisfactory to 
feel he had been teaching the Austrians, who, with dis- 
cipline greatly improved, had shown scarcely inferior 
heroism. Broun was baffled but not discouraged, and it 
was no fault of his that a second attempt to break the 
blockade was foiled by weather which wrecked a cleverly 
devised combination. The Saxons capitulated to famine, 
and passed under the Prussian colours. All this time and 



202 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

till the army went into winter quarters, Keith had remained 
in his camp at Lobositz, engaged in some minor actions, 
but virtually merely keeping the lists. 

1757 was the darkest, the most brilliant, and the most 
wonderful year in the King's chequered career. Beset by 
enemies on all sides, his most urgent concern was to deal 
with the Austrians. In Bohemia they had two great 
armies. Broun and Prince Charles of Lorraine were at the 
capital ; Daun and Ludowitz were coming up behind. 
Frederick's columns were set in motion for Prague ; the 
combinations were calculated to a day, for Schwerin was 
advancing through the mountains by a different route from 
the King, and punctuality was everything. Schwerin was 
true to time at the trysting place before the Austrian field- 
works, but his sturdy soldiers came up in the last stage of 
exhaustion. The Marshal pleaded for a day's delay, but 
the King, in apprehension of the arrival of Daun, determined 
for immediate attack. The excitement of battle fired the 
flagging strength of Schwerin's hungry and weary soldiers. 
The Austrians held the natural fortress of the famous 
Ziskaberg, bristling with improvised redoubts and field 
batteries. The only possible chance of success was in 
turning the position on their extreme right, and success 
was achieved, in spite of unforeseen obstacles in the shape 
of ditch and morass, with the loss of 13,000 men — Frederick 
puts it at 18,000 — and of brave old Marshal Schwerin, 
whom he valued at 10,000 more. Broun, with his leg 
shattered by a cannon ball, was carried into Prague to die 
of the wound. Prince Charles was put hors de combat with 
spasms in the chest. Forty thousand of the enemy were 
driven into the town, and the rest broke away in various 



MARSHAL KEITH 203 

directions. Keith with the Prussian right wing was on 
the Weissenberg, to the west of the city, and had no direct 
share in the victory. But he cut into the game by head- 
ing back the Austrians who sought safety in flight by the 
western gates. 

The strain on Frederick's nerves was intense, for then 
as always through that campaign time was everything. 
He may have hoped to carry Prague by a coup de main, 
but the beaten enemy made a formidable garrison in a 
city exceptionally capable of defence. It was furiously 
bombarded from both sides ; Keith had mounted his 
batteries on the Lorenzberg, a height dominating the 
Weissenberg. The siege dragged, horse-flesh was selling at 
fancy prices, and the garrison was enfeebled by famine. 
On the 23rd of May they were mustered for a desperate 
sally upon Keith's lines to the west of the Moldau. Ten 
thousand picked men, those who had suffered least, were 
to break out in the darkness, and the whole of the army 
was mustered, to follow if things went well. But Keith 
was on his guard ; there was no surprise, and the sortie 
was repulsed with heavy loss. 

Still the siege dragged, and Daun, already superior in 
numbers, was gathering strength every day. Frederick 
resolved on the desperate venture of attacking him in his 
entrenchments on the heights of Kolin. The tidings of 
that disastrous day were brought to Prague by special 
messenger — a messenger who had specially distinguished 
himself, and Colonel Grant was charged with the order 
for the immediate abandonment of the siege. The shock 
to the generals was great, but they lost not a moment in 
obeying. Ferdinand of Brunswick was in command on the 



204 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Ziskaberg, Keith on the Lorenzberg. The order came on 
the afternoon of the 19th of June. At three in the morning 
of the 20th the Prince was fiHng down from the Ziskaberg. 
Keith's departure was delayed for twelve hours longer, for 
he had all the baggage with him and most of the guns; 
but once begun, it was admirably effected. He took every 
precaution for the safety of his convoy, for he feared there 
might be hot pursuit. At Leitmeritz, where he halted, he 
was joined by the King. But there was little rest for 
Frederick. He had detached his brother, the Prince of 
Prussia, on the difficult and delicate business of completing 
the evacuation of Bohemia, which was inevitable. August 
Wilhelm bungled it, and his brother hurried off to put 
matters right, leaving Keith to follow with the artillery. 

He could not tempt the Austrians to the battle he 
ardently desired, and his presence, as always, was urgently 
demanded elsewhere. The French with Austrian allies 
were in Thuringia. Leaving an army to mount guard 
over Silesia, he hastened westwards with a weak division, 
gathering up reinforcements as he went. But two months 
were to elapse before he brought the French to battle ; he 
was called back by the evil tidings of menace to Berlin, 
and in his absence Keith and Frederick of Brunswick were 
left to do their utmost in face of the enemy. He came 
back towards the end of October, and came in time to 
bring relief to Keith, who had thrown himself into Leipzig 
with a feeble force. For two days Keith had been in 
extreme danger, but he had stood gallantly on his defence 
when summoned by Soubise's vanguard. The news of 
Frederick's approach had raised the siege. Then from 
Leipzig there was a forward march, and ten days after- 



MARSHAL KEITH 205 

wards the battle of Rossbach. The King headed the left 
column ; Keith led the right, keeping within touch. On 
the ist November they were on the banks of the Saale ; 
the French declined to dispute the river ; the Prussians 
repaired the broken bridges and passed. In front of them 
was a country of hill and dale and sheltered villages, and 
there the battle was fought, when the victors were as one 
to three against the vanquished. Frederick's left lay round 
the village which gave the field its name, and in the centre 
he commanded in person. Soubise was over-confident in 
his overwhelming superiority, and the Prussian weakness 
had been masked so adroitly that he believed it to be even 
greater than it was. His plan was to surround and roll 
up the puny forces opposed to him. The tables were 
turned in the sudden surprise, when Sedlitz with the cavalry 
came down on his right in a furious flanking charge. In 
the confusion thus created, Frederick unmasked. His field 
pieces came into view on the hill crests, and opened a 
murderous fire. His infantry, in echelon, descended the 
slopes in steady advance, silent till they opened a musket 
fire on the serried ranks of the French. In vain Soubise 
and his gallant lieutenants strove to bring order out of 
chaos and confusion. Keith and Ferdinand of Bruns- 
wick had come down simultaneously with the King, and 
were searching the French left with withering volleys. 
Huddled together like scared sheep, confusion became 
panic ; the rout was general ; they broke and fled in all 
directions, leaving guns and everything else behind. 

No sooner had the victory been won than Frederick 
was back in Silesia. There everything had been going 
against him ; Charles of Lorraine and Daun had overrun 



2o6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the province. Frederick's arrival was to turn back the tide ; 
but Keith was busy in Bohemia, where he routed his con- 
fident enemies on the bloody field of Leuthen, and after a 
swift succession of the most remarkable victories on record, 
went into winter quarters at Breslau. At Rossbach the 
odds had been as one to three ; Leuthen was won with 30,000 
against 80,000 of the elite of the Austrians. 

The year 1758 opened with the unlucky siege of Olmutz, 
conducted by Keith, The Marshal lost no honour by his 
failure, which, though unwont to cast blame on subordi- 
nates, he attributed chiefly to his chief engineer. More- 
over, ammunition had run short, and for that he was in 
no way responsible. It was said that Frederick had 
hesitated to deplete his magazine, and a train of supplies 
which he sent forward was ambushed and captured with 
the convoy. Had the Marshal been in any way blamable, 
he would have retrieved his credit by the masterly retreat 
in which he saved himself and his 4000 baggage waggons. 
Throughout he was ever in the rear of his rearguard, though 
suffering from severe illness. 

Frederick in earlier days had been inclined to overrate 
the Russians ; latterly he had gone to the other extreme. 
Keith had repeatedly told him that he was wrong, and at 
Zorndorf he had reason to remember the warning, though 
Keith was not there to remind him. He won the battle, 
but at a heavy cost. Unlike the French at Rossbach, the 
Russians refused to recognise defeat, and though they 
could not re-form again to order like the highly drilled 
Prussians, they stood stubbornly to be cut to pieces. 

After Leuthen, Charles of Lorraine had gone in sore dis- 
comfiture to Brussels ; but Daun, as strong as before, was 



MARSHAL KEITH 207 

overrunning the Saxony Frederick had annexed. On the 
loth of October Frederick was facing him again with what 
forces he could muster after his Pyrrhic victory at Zorndorf . 
For four days the armies sat watching each other. Keith 
was in command of the Prussian right, stretching beyond 
the village of Hochkirch, and within two miles of Lobau, 
memorable in the wars of the next century. The King 
had been pressing forward with less than his usual de- 
liberation ; the positions were bad, and Keith remarked 
bluntly that if the Austrians did not attack, they deserved 
to be hanged. Daun agreed with Keith, and confident 
like Soubise in his numbers, had devised a similar and an 
excellent plan. The plan of a night or early morning sur- 
prise was so foreign to his habitual caution, that Frederick 
for once was deceived. And Daun, reading his adversary's 
mind, had cleverly added to the deception by elaborately 
strengthening the entrenchments on his heights. Thirty 
thousand selected men under his own command were under 
cover in the woods opposite Keith's positions on his left. 
At the stroke of five from the church of Hochkirch they 
were to rush the Prussian outposts. A few minutes after 
the bugles answered the chime of the clock, there was 
a raging hand-to-hand fight in and around the village ; 
Keith, roused from his sleep, rushed from his quarters 
behind to hear that his men were being beaten back, and 
that his batteries were taken. The guns must be recovered 
at any cost. He threw himself upon his horse, retook his 
batteries, but was surrounded on all sides by the Austrians 
surging back again. The light was still dim ; the dawn 
was obscured by powder smoke ; all was confusion, and 
nothing to be distinguished. He called in vain for his 



2o8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

aides-de-camp ; he could rally no men to his support. 
Twice wounded, with the few soldiers around him he was 
striving to extricate himself and restore the battle, when a 
third bullet reached his heart. Like old Schwerin, the 
greatest of the Scottish soldiers of fortune fell on the field 
of honour, and died as he would have desired, though the 
one fell in the hour of defeat, the other on the eve of a 
glorious victory. 

The Marshal had domestic tastes though he never 
married, neglecting his many opportunities in Russia. But 
at the surrender of Wilmanstrand in 1743 he found among 
the prisoners a beautiful Swedish girl whose parents had 
either fled or perished. He took Eva Merthens in every 
sense under his protection, for he was no more of a St. 
Anthony than any of his contemporaries. He had the 
little girl carefully educated — in particular she showed a 
great talent for music — and when she grew up she became 
his mistress. By her he had several children, of whom 
we hear nothing, and it is to be feared they were ill pro- 
vided for. His brother the Earl may have exaggerated his 
poverty, but except for such windfalls as the administration 
of Bohemia, there were few opportunities of saving under 
Frederick's frugal regime. Whatever he possessed was 
bequeathed to his mistress, who survived her elderly adorer 
for half a century. 



VII 

MARSHAL SAXE 

Maurice of Saxe was one of the numerous progeny of 
Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of 
Poland. He inherited the strength, the constitution, the 
abihties, and the temperament of his gifted and vicious 
father. His mother was the beautiful Aurora von Konigs- 
mark, and his life, like hers, was a romance. She was the 
daughter of the Count von Konigsmark who had dis- 
appeared mysteriously when, presuming on his favour at 
the Court of Hanover, he had raised his eyes to a Princess 
of Zell. Jewish creditors disputed the succession to his 
property, when Aurora with her sisters came from Denmark 
to Dresden to invoke the protection of the Saxon Elector. 
The amorous prince was fascinated at first sight ; the lady 
surrendered after a protracted siege. It is said that at the 
fete in her honour which swayed her decision she found on 
her plate at the evening banquet a bouquet of precious 
stones of priceless value. Maurice was born in 1696, one 
of a hundred or more of illegitimate children who could 
claim princely paternity. But the son of Aurora von 
Konigsmark was the only one who was acknowledged ; the 
infant had the title of Count de Saxe, so that Maurice 
might be said to have been cradled on the steps of a throne 
— whence, perhaps, the audacity of his conceptions, his 

309 Q 



2IO SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

magnificence in a milieu where profusion was the rule, and 
his over-vaulting ambition. His doting mother spoiled the 
boy ; his father loved him for the striking resemblance to 
himself, in character as well as physique. Aurora's accom- 
plishments might have held the affections of the volatile 
monarch — he had been elected to the crown of Poland the 
year after Maurice's birth — had not the consequences of a 
severe illness disenchanted him; but she still retained his 
friendship and regard, nor had she reason to complain of 
his generosity. The monarch's favourite mistress was 
made Abbess of the wealthy Abbey of Quedlinburg, and 
she had sundry pensions to boot. The sisters of Quedlin- 
burg were of the Lutheran religion ; Maurice was bred in 
that faith and held firmly to it, which afterwards delayed 
his advancement in France, when he had earned the baton 
of the Field-Marshal over and over again. 

His military tastes were pronounced as those of Prince 
Eugene, and never has there been a more precocious boy. 
With a single exception he hated lessons, but as a child 
he was enthusiastic over riding and fencing. That sole 
exception was the study of French, as if his prescience 
had forecast his future. As soon as he could mount a 
horse, he had accompanied his father to the PoHsh cam- 
paigns. When peace was proclaimed in Central Europe, 
he sadly missed the excitement. When in 1708 the allies 
declared war against King Louis he got permission to join 
them. A boy of twelve, enlisting as a private, he marched 
on foot from Dresden to the Netherlands, where he joined 
the King, who was then incognito in the allied camp. His 
mother had been inconsolable at the parting, but she 
specially confided him to the charge of Count Schulenberg, 



MARSHAL SAXE 211 

who was in command of the Saxon contingent. Young 
Maurice could have found no better mentor ; but, though he 
admired the Count as a master of war, unfortunately he 
set small store by his moral lessons. He had gone to 
school besides under Marlborough and Eugene, who noted 
the intelligence of their eager pupil when they were forming 
the most formidable of the future generals of France. 
Precocious in everything, when the allies were resting on 
their arms through the winter, the boy had the first of his 
innumerable amours. He made himself conspicuous in the 
battle of Malplaquet, and in the evening after the frightful 
carnage, remarked placidly that he was well content with 
the day's work. 

In March 1710, hearing that the Russians had invaded 
Livonia and invested Riga, he hurried from Dresden to 
take part in the siege, and had a cordial reception from 
Peter the Great. The fortress fell, and satisfied, as he 
said, with having received the approbation of so glorious 
a leader, that he might miss no possible chance he hastened 
west to the Low Countries. At the sieges of that summer 
he exposed himself with such foolhardiness as to have 
warning or rebuke both from Marlborough and Eugene. 
Marlborough said that none but a man who knew not 
what danger was would do what he did, and Eugene told 
him that with connoisseurs of experience, recklessness could 
never pass for courage. No warnings of the kind had any 
weight. In 171 1, when he was campaigning with the King 
against the Swedes in Pomerania, he swam the Sound in 
sight of the enemy, with a pistol in his teeth, when three 
and twenty of his soldiers were shot in the crossing. 
Soldiering had ever a greater fascination for him than 



212 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

love-making. In the winter, the King, dehghted with his 
mihtary spirit, gave him a newly-raised regiment of horse 
as a plaything. Maurice was indefatigable in mounting, 
drilling, and disciplining his men, and was so highly satis- 
fied with the results that he longed to lead them into 
action. His desires were gratified in the spring, when the 
war was renewed in Pomerania. The Saxons were beaten, 
but Maurice distinguished himself by the skill and spirit 
with which he handled his regiment ; his dispositions in 
repeated charges and the adroitness with which he managed 
the retreats were praised alike by the Saxon and the 
Swedish generals. Already, with all his hot-headed valour 
he had the eye and cool decision of a veteran. 

It may be doubted whether the best and most beautiful 
of wives would have steadied him, but when he was 
married to a girl of fifteen, his mother's choice was an 
unhappy one. It was no love match when in his nineteenth 
year he wedded the Countess de Lobin. The young lady 
was a great heiress, but she was as careless of the marriage 
vows as her husband, and they soon parted, not by divorce, 
but by mutual consent. 

Next year there was nothing notable, except a narrow 
escape from death or captivity, in which tactics and daring 
served him well. Travelling to the army with five officers 
and a dozen of attendants, he was beset in an inn by a 
Polish horde belonging to a faction opposed to his father 
and bitterly envenomed against the son. The little party 
blocked doors and windows, and stood on their defence till 
their ammunition had given out and things looked desperate. 
A sally seemed hopeless, but Maurice told his followers it 
was their only chance, for no quarter was to be expected. 



MARSHAL SAXE 213 

The night was falUng, and there were woods hard by where 
they might find safety. They rushed the enemy's ad- 
vanced guard, who had dismounted; seized their horses, 
cut a passage through the rest, reached the woods, and 
made their way to a Saxon garrison. Maurice would have 
been sadly disappointed had mischief befallen him then, 
for he was hastening to the siege of Stralsund, where he 
hoped to see the hero, Charles the Twelfth, who was 
directing the defence in person. His wish was gratified, 
for one day, being with the stormers of a horn- work, he 
met Charles face to face, who was fighting at the head 
of his grenadiers. The meeting and the noble bearing of 
the King left an abiding impression, for Maurice always 
venerated his memory. 

Prince Eugene's campaign against the Turks was an 
irresistible temptation. Maurice was one of the last of 
the princes and young nobles who flocked to the Prince's 
camp, and he was the last to take reluctant leave when 
he saw no hope of further distinction. He had come in 
time for the siege of Belgrade. Before the great battle he 
lost no opportunity of being out with the light horse who 
faced the clouds of skirmishing Spahis, and again there 
was many an occasion to rebuke him for his rashness. His 
father had the more readily given him permission to go to 
the Danube, that the hot-headed youth had got into hot 
water at Dresden. The death of the Electress Dowager 
had lost him a powerful protectress, who had always taken 
his part against the minister who had the ear of the King 
and was the inveterate enemy of Saxe and his mother. 
There were incessant complaints from his wife, to whom 
he had given too good cause of jealousy. Their cool 



214 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

relations had ended in mutual aversion, and in 1720 
Maurice took flight for the congenial Paris of the Regency. 
He was a man after the Regent's own heart, and soon 
ranked high among his roue's. Excelling all his rivals in 
the success and excess of his amours, no one of them drank 
or played deeper, and the recklessness of his gambling was 
the more admired that his means were notoriously limited. 
Yet with his folly was mingled much worldly wisdom. 
The Regent offered his joyous boon-companion employ- 
ment in France. Maurice answered very sensibly that 
there was nothing he should desire more, but he must first 
have the sanction of his father. The sanction implied the 
means of keeping up a suitable establishment, and Maurice 
went to Dresden to obtain it. The Regent by way of re- 
commending the request, paid him the extraordinary com- 
pliment of giving him the brevet of Marechal de Camp, as 
an earnest of what he might expect if the errand to Dresden 
were successful. 

Matters did not arrange themselves so easily as Saxe 
would have desired. The King made many sensible 
objections, though he does not seem to have laid stress on 
the renunciation of German nationality. Two years were 
to pass before the return to France, and it was partly 
delayed by his fixed determination to get rid of his wife. 
Seldom has a divorce been carried out on such terms, 
though they were entirely in keeping with his character. 
Divorce could only be granted on proof of adultery, and 
the guilty party incurred the death penalty. The lawyers 
saw no way out of the difficulty. Maurice took the matter 
into his own hand : was caught in flagrant ddit, divorced, 
duly condemned by the courts, and pardoned by the gracious 



MARSHAL SAXE 215 

mercy of the sovereign. Back in Paris in the spring of 
1722, he found none of the foreign regiments vacant, so 
he bought the regiment of Spar, which was sold him dear, 
and began immediately to reform it and remodel the 
system on that which had answered so well with his corps 
in Saxony. But France being then in an interlude of 
peace, for three years while keeping open house and 
maintaining his reputation for dissipation among the 
most debauched, he amused what leisure he could spare 
from folly in prosecuting his studies in the science 
of war. 

Events which gave him the chance of his life roused 
him from his lethargy. In December 1725 Ferdinand of 
Courland, last male of the old ducal dynasty, fell danger- 
ously ill. Courland was a sovereign state, though de- 
pending on Poland, and now it was rumoured that the 
Polish Diet had decided to annex it. Patriotism and 
religion in Courland were alike alarmed. The Lutherans 
would be subjected to the CathoHc hierarchy, and the 
State would be split into Palatinates ruled by popish 
Palatines. The Courland Diet hastily assembled to elect 
an adjunct and successor to their moribund Duke. It is 
doubtful by whom the idea of Saxe's candidature was 
broached ; some say by Brakel, a patriotic Courlander ; 
others by Lefort, the scheming Saxon envoy at St. Peters- 
burg. Saxe grasped gladly at the proposal. The Cour- 
landers never doubted that it would be agreeable to his 
father, as it was ; but they hardly reckoned with the 
opposition of the Polish Diet. However, Saxe having 
assured himself of his father's consent, hastened to Mittau, 
the capital of the duchy. The Diet welcomed him with 



2i6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

open arms, and the populace cheered him to the echo 
when he rode through the streets. He came with the 
reputation of the most brilliant libertine and dashing 
officer of the day, which recommended him to the good 
graces of Anne, daughter of the elder brother of Peter the 
Great and widow of the late Duke, Anne was generally 
beloved, and had great influence. The gallant adventurer 
probably never had an idea of marrying her, nevertheless 
he made proposals in form, and was conditionally accepted. 
Meantime he had been taking more active measures. The 
sinews of war had been found by a joint-stock company 
of French speculators, and his devoted mistress, the famous 
actress, Adrienne le Couvreur, had contributed the whole 
of her plate and jewels. The fund gave out at Liege, where 
recruiting bad been going briskly forward, but not before 
800 men had been enlisted. When his recruits reached 
Mittau, Saxe had announced the confirmation of his election 
— formally to the Polish Primate, secretly, with all con- 
fidential details, to his father. Meantime, however, the 
match with Anne had miscarried, if it had ever been 
seriously intended. Another Russian princess was in the 
marriage market, and the indefatigable Lefort had changed 
his views. He wrote from St. Petersburg, painting in 
glowing colours the charms of the Princess Elizabeth, and 
protesting that she was as much in love with Saxe, or with 
his reputation, as the Duchess Anne. Never did a man of 
such boundless ambition more narrowly miss a pinnacle of 
greatness to which even Saxe had never aspired. He had 
the chance of marriage with either of two future Empresses : 
he might have been the Tsar, or at least the omnipotent 
dictator of Muscovy. He hesitated with no fixed inten- 



MARSHAL SAXE 217 

tions, and so slipped between the two stools. For the 
moment he was leaning upon the Duchess Anne, and went 
to Warsaw instead of to St. Petersburg. 

The King secretly favoured him ; the Polish Diet was 
firm against the candidature. His illegitimate sisters, 
canvassing actively for him, did him the more harm that 
their influence was great, Polish patriots raised the cry 
that the King, having bled the treasury to enrich his 
bastards, now proposed to alienate Polish possessions to 
create principalities for them. Augustus had no idea of 
risking his crown that Maurice might be Duke of Cour- 
land. He had given his son letters for the Empress 
Catherine, then he reconsidered his decision. Maurice was 
stopped on the point of starting, and when told that the 
royal order was imperative, he said he had no mind to 
disobey, but if the journey were countermanded all was 
lost. And so it proved. He set out all the same, but it 
was to carry on the campaign in Courland, He was still 
the favourite of the fickle Courlanders, but a formidable 
Russian candidate was in the field after sundry others of 
princely birth had been rejected. The all-powerful Men- 
schikoff was at Riga to urge his own cause, and had brought 
12,000 soldiers to back him. He pressed his claims with 
threats rather than flatteries. Speaking as the mouthpiece 
of his mistress, he threatened the Marshal of the Diet and 
the leading members with a journey to Siberia if they did 
not annul the election of Maurice. Saxe, on his part, 
exclaimed bitterly that he had found open arms, but no 
open purses. His money had run short, and he had only 
a few squadrons of mercenary dragoons. Menschikoff sent 
the Diet an ultimatum when Maurice was vainly urging 



21 8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

them to vigorous defence. But the Russian was a man of 
action, as Saxe had reason to know. 

He was in his quarters, and deep in an embarrassing 
letter from the Primate of Poland, when he was disturbed 
by a stir in the street. He looked out, to see the house 
beset by soldiers. He realised at once that it was a coup 
of his enemy, and made preparations for defence as on 
the former occasion at Crachnitz. With his little garrison 
of sixty men he made determined resistance, till the firing 
and the clamour had roused the town. The citizens rushed 
to arms, the enamoured Duchess sent her guards to his 
help, and Menschikoff's baffled 800 beat a retreat. It was 
a near thing, for undoubtedly had Maurice been taken, he 
would have had summary despatch to Siberia, and would 
probably have happened to die en route. As it was, he 
was landed in another complication, for, as his quarters 
had suffered severely in the assault, the Duchess insisted 
on housing him in her palace. 

The Polish Diet had summoned him for contumacy ; 
on his declining to appear as owing no allegiance to it, 
he had been outlawed and a price set upon his head. The 
sentence sat lightly on him. He went to Dresden, got 
some money there, and, returning to Mittau, raised a body- 
guard of a few hundreds. It was money wasted, for the 
Polish Diet sent commissioners charged to have him arrested, 
and he could put no faith in the constancy of the Cour- 
landers. He picked up the Flemish troopers he had left 
at Dantzic, and, taking shipping for the island of Usmaiz, 
set to work to fortify it. The death of the Empress 
Catherine left the Regent Menschikoff for the moment 
master of Russia, and made him indifferent to the dukedom 



MARSHAL SAXE 219 

of Courland. It changed nothing so far as Saxe was con- 
cerned. A declaration dictated to the young Tsar and 
addressed to the Diet suggested a choice of candidates 
from which Saxe was excluded. Virtually a command, it 
was enforced by a Russian army. The stroke was decisive. 
Saxe had but a handful of troops, his credit was exhausted, 
and he was out of the good graces of the Duchess Anne ; 
yet, characteristically, though he beat a retreat, he did 
not altogether despair. The death of young Peter and the 
unexpected elevation of the Duchess to the Russian throne 
revived his drooping hopes. But his amours, carried on, 
and scarcely sought to be concealed, under the roof of the 
woman who had been foolishly in love with him, were 
neither to be forgotten nor forgiven. Anne was implacable, 
though his agents strove hard to conciliate her. 

Dissipating in Paris in 1732, his excesses brought on a 
serious illness. During his slow recovery he devoted his 
time to the composition of the very remarkable " Reveries." 
They show the man as he might have been had he con- 
centrated himself on his grand passion of ambition, in 
place of indulging in a multiplicity of those fugitive amours, 
where he generally, as was his fashion, took the place by 
storm. They were wonderful studies of the science of war, 
where the practical blends with the sentimental or romantic. 
They anticipate the modern idea of bringing the whole 
manhood of a nation under arms instead of recruiting the 
ranks from mercenaries and the scum of the populace. All 
for improvised redoubts, he condemns the elaborate en- 
trenchments and fortified camps then universally in vogue, 
saying that with the best troops in the world they bring 
apprehension of defeat in place of confidence of victory. 



2 20 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

He anticipated the irresistible elan the great Frederick gave 
to his armies — though the abuse of these tactics sometimes 
cost the Prussians dear — and the advances in echelon, super- 
seding column-shock, which staggered generals of the older 
school and compensated for inferiority in numbers. And 
descending to details, he denounced the showy but unservice- 
able uniforms, unfitted alike for work and rough weather, 
parsimoniously doled out at long intervals by captains 
who filled their pockets at the cost of their companies. 

The death of his father broke one of the strongest ties 
which still held him to the land of his birth. It did more, 
for the vacancy embroiled the affairs of Europe. France, 
in spite of the pacific efforts of Fleury, on an understanding 
for division of the spoils with Spain and Savoy, heedlessly 
plunged into war out of sheer jealousy of Austria. But 
the triumvirate of Powers was far from the Polish frontier, 
and the Saxon Elector's claims to the paternal succession 
were supported by his powerful neighbours. It shows the 
estimate in which Saxe's military talents were already 
held, that his brother offered him the command of the 
Saxon army. It was a tempting offer, but, whatever the 
reason, it was declined. Probably Saxe was already a 
Frenchman at heart, seeing broader fields for his ambition 
in France than in Poland. 

He returned to place himself at the head of his regi- 
ment. He was with Berwick on the Rhine and with 
Belleisle on the Moselle. Everywhere he displayed his 
reckless daring and the talent that was more highly appre- 
ciated. When Belleisle was besieging Coblenz the slow 
operations palled on him ; he asked and obtained leave to 
join Berwick, who was advancing to drive the Imperialists 



MARSHAL SAXE 221 

out of their lines at Etlingen. Berwick received him with 
a flattering compliment, " Count, I was going to ask 
M. de Noailles for 3000 men, but you alone are worth more 
to me than that reinforcement." The speech was followed 
by another compliment more to Saxe's tastes, for he was 
given a detachment of grenadiers, with orders for an imme- 
diate onslaught on the lines. He forced the positions of 
the enemy, captured their guns on that side, and thereby 
decided the result of the operations. It would be tedious 
to recount all the exploits where he would seem to have 
risked himself under the safeguard of a special Providence. 
For special gallantry at Philipsbourg, following on the 
affair of Etlingen, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant- 
General. When he returned to Paris for the winter, he had 
been preceded by Belleisle, who had been generous in his 
praises of the man of whom d'Asfeldt, who had succeeded 
Berwick, had spoken as his right hand. 

Peace sent him back to his studies and his loves. There 
were fetes and festivities at the betrothal of a French 
princess to Don Philip of Spain. At a hunting luncheon 
at Chantilly the son of Augustus the Strong had an oppor- 
tunity of showing himself the heir of his father's strength. 
Corkscrews had been forgotten. Saxe took a tenpenny 
nail, and twisting it round his finger, drew all the corks. 
Indeed, when halting at a village, he is said once to have 
astonished the rustics by snapping half-a-dozen of horse- 
shoes while the farrier was shoeing his horse. The garrison 
of Paris at that time was perpetually getting into trouble 
with the burghers on whom they were billeted. Always 
interested in military discipline, Saxe submitted a paper 
to the Minister of War, recommending a novelty — the 



222 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

building of barracks. The minute was approved, but it 
was shelved through the practical difficulty that two- 
thirds of the Guards were married men with families — a 
strong argument, as Saxe remarked, for his own system of 
recruiting. Perhaps the most flattering tribute he ever 
received was in 1740, when, in course of a tour in the south, 
he visited Toulon. Admiral Matthews, of court-martial 
notoriety, was then blockading the port. Count Saxe asked 
the Admiral's permission to view the British fleet. The 
Admiral sent his own galley to convey the illustrious guest. 
The fleet, dressed out in colours, received him with a 
general salute. There was a grand banquet on board the 
flagship ; the Kings of France and England were re- 
peatedly toasted, and each time the glasses were emptied 
there was a salvo from all the guns of the ships. 

That year saw almost simultaneously the deaths of the 
Emperor Charles and the Empress Anne. Saxe, with his 
spasmodic tenacity, had never lost sight of the ducal crown 
of Courland. The latter event, with the fall of his enemy, 
the omnipotent Biron, sent him incognito to St. Petersburg 
to strive to knit up the broken threads of the old intrigues. 
He came back disappointed from a bootless errand to 
gather fresh laurels in new fields. The death of Charles 
had given the signal for war, reviving the eternal animosity 
between Bourbon and Hapsburg. France, as before, had 
found an ally in the Elector of Bavaria, who was advancing 
pretensions of his own to the Empire. In August 1741 
Saxe joined the allied army under the Elector in Alsace. 
Though there were some sharp skirmishes, the march to 
St. Polten on the Danube was rather a military promenade. 
Then the alarm in the Kaiserstadt was relieved by the 



MARSHAL SAXE 223 

news that the victorious advance had been diverted to 
Bohemia. On the 23rd of October, Saxe with the van- 
guard had occupied Budweis. At the same time the 
Prussians and Saxons were entering Bohemia from the 
north. The Elector had only been feinting on Vienna, and 
Maria Theresa, suddenly undeceived, was hurrying belated 
succours into Bohemia. Meanwhile the Elector was within 
striking distance of Prague, and had sent the governor a 
summons. 

The answer was that he could not be expected to 
surrender before trenches had been opened or a cannon 
fired. The Elector responded by an attack, without wait- 
ing for his artillery. There was a feint on one side to 
divert attention ; on another the actual onslaught was 
entrusted to Saxe, He led it with his accustomed daring, 
but has certainly been over-praised It cannot have been 
a very serious affair, when not a Frenchman was killed 
and only two were wounded. However, he was in the 
centre of the city, and had taken over 3000 prisoners, when 
the feigned attack, changing to a real one, carried it 
effectually from the other side. Next morning, as master 
of the place, he presented the keys to the Elector. The 
Bavarian had a welcome from the nobles, and was solemnly 
crowned. His reply to Saxe's congratulations was sarcastic, 
epigrammatic, and prophetic. Doubtless he remembered 
the unfortunate Winter-King. " Yes, I am King of 
Bohemia as you are Duke of Courland." He was to wear 
another illusory diadem when elected Emperor in the 
Imperial Diet at Frankfort, with the style of Charles VII. 
The war went on. Emperor or Elector, he withdrew to 
the Lower Palatinate, and when, after its suspension through 



224 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the winter it recommenced in the spring, Saxe was with 
Marshal Broglie in Bohemia. He was detached with 12,000 
men to assail the important fortress of Eger — memorable 
in the fall of Wallenstein — where the Austrians had their 
arsenal and magazines. Eger capitulated, though it was 
deemed so strong that Prince Charles had not troubled to 
march to its relief, and its fall raised Saxe's reputation 
far higher than the somewhat theatrical escalade of the 
fortifications of Prague. 

Then a political revolution gave check to the French 
and Bavarians. Frederick of Prussia made peace with the 
Queen of Hungary, carrying the Saxons along with him. 
To the remonstrances of the French envoy, he cynically 
replied that with Silesia he had got everything he wanted. 
The Queen could turn her whole strength against the 
invaders. Swarms of Croats, Uhlans, and Pandours ravaged 
Bavaria. The evacuation of Bohemia became inevitable. 
The French army encamped under the batteries of Prague 
began to bethink themselves of making terms. Versailles 
in alarm gave the generals full powers, but the Austrians 
saw their advantage and pressed it. The tables were 
turned, and now 22,000 Frenchmen were to be beleaguered 
in Prague. They held out gallantly, but their sallies were 
repulsed, and provisions rose to famine prices. News of 
the advance of Marshal Maillebois gave them a breathing 
space ; Broglie broke out with half the garrison to make 
a junction with Maillebois, which he never effected ; Belle- 
isle, finding the situation desperate, left with the rest, 
keeping his secret to the last moment, and reaching Eger 
in safety with baggage and artillery. With the glorious 
defence and the admirably conducted retreats which saved 



MARSHAL SAXE 225 

the wrecks of the once victorious army, Saxe was not con- 
cerned. He had gone to Dresden and thence to St. Peters- 
burg on private business, and on his return as Prague 
was straitly shut up, he joined Maillebois on the Danube. 
Though Broghe had failed in the junction with Maillebois 
he made his way personally by a circuitous route to that 
Marshal's headquarters and assumed the command. He 
found Maillebois' forces almost in as bad a state as his 
own, and wisely, perhaps, as soon as possible withdrew 
into winter quarters between the Inn and the Iser, sending 
Saxe into cantonments beyond the Danube. The fiery 
spirit of Saxe was disgusted at the evacuation of Bohemia 
and the abandoning of Eger, which he regarded as a con- 
quest of his own. He wrote his remonstrances to Broglie 
in a tone rather that of an equal or superior than of a 
subordinate, and Broglie, who was a martinet and tenacious 
of purpose, very naturally disregarded them. 

In 1743, when King Louis was eager to retrieve his defeats 
and misfortunes, it was a question of enrolling civic militia 
and raising new armies. Saxe, who had had reason to 
appreciate the Austrian light horse, had undertaken to 
recruit a regiment of Uhlans. But so great was the con- 
fidence Louis reposed in him, that to smooth the way to 
his advancement he withdrew all officers senior to him 
from the army in Bavaria. Broglie was still general-in- 
chief, but Saxe had the command in the Upper Palatinate. 
When Dettingen had been fought and lost, the armies of 
Broglie and Noailles were united to mount guard on the 
Rhine. Saxe had to yield his command to Marshal Coigny, 
but with the great exception of Dettingen, which but for 
the folly of the Duke de Grammont should have been a 



226 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

French victory, there was nothing in the campaigns of 
1743 to respond to the formidable preparations. 

Nor was the campaign of 1745 in the Austrian Nether- 
lands more pregnant with decisive results. Saxe, who was 
to second De Noailles, had been consulted and had sketched 
out a programme. But before the performance came off, 
there was an interlude and a fiasco. The advisers of Louis 
were persuaded by Jacobite agents that the English were 
longing for the return of the Stewarts, and that an in- 
vasion might be successful. So at least it has been 
supposed, although there are indications that the opera- 
tions were nothing more than a feint. Prince Charles 
Edward was invited from Rome to Paris. Fifteen thou- 
sand men were mustered on the Channel to embark at 
Dunkirk. Saxe was to have the command, with secret 
orders to land them on the Thames, when London and 
Kent were to receive them with acclamations. As to that, 
it does not appear that Saxe was consulted. The squadron 
which was to clear the Channel was to be under Admiral 
de Roquefeuille. He sailed from Brest, to be baffled by 
contrary winds, and meantime the British cruisers had 
brought warnings of his movements. Seeing no enemies, 
he sent messages to Dunkirk, urging Saxe to embark his 
men with all speed. Half the corps of invasion, with 
masses of war material, were hurried on board the trans- 
ports, Saxe and the Young Chevalier being in the same 
ship. But meantime De Roquefeuille's frigates had told 
him that Sir John Norris had only shifted from Spithead 
to the Downs, and that his fleet was actually bearing down 
on the French squadron. De Roquefeuille crowded all 
sail for Brest ; his fleet was greatly outnumbered by the 



MARSHAL SAXE 227 

other ; light winds freshened to a gale, and the gale rose 
to a storm. No news of his flight had reached the trans- 
ports, but perhaps the storm which sent several to the 
bottom saved them from worse disaster. Saxe and the 
survivors were landed and the expedition was at an end. 

For four years, notwithstanding liberal English sub- 
sidies, the battle of Dettingen, and this hostile expedition, 
France and Britain had been nominally at peace. The 
year 1744 opened with formal declarations of war. The 
French king was to take the field in person ; Noailles had 
trumped the tricks of those who were intriguing against 
him, and his friend and pupil Saxe at last received the 
b^ton of Marshal. The army of invasion was in two parts ; 
Noailles with one was to push the sieges of the Flemish 
fortresses, and to Saxe was entrusted the covering opera- 
tions. With the eye of a great strategist he chose his 
position at Courtrai. There he made his works unassailable, 
while at the same time he could make diversions in all 
directions to distract the attentions of the allies to De 
Noailles. The French generals were aided, no doubt, by 
the dissensions in the hostile camp. Marshal Wade was a 
good soldier, but no genius, and he had neither the suave 
tact nor the masterful spirit of Marlborough. He was 
hampered at every turn by his Austrian and Dutch 
colleagues. The allies everywhere outnumbered the French 
by three to two, and the odds became infinitely greater 
when Prince Charles of Lorraine broke into Alsace, draw- 
ing away the Due d'Harcourt with his strong detachment. 
But the allies dared not attempt the storm of Saxe's 
entrenchments, nor could they lure him out to offer battle. 
The enforced inactivity must have been a sore strain on 



228 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

his fiery temperament, but he clung to Courtrai and his 
fixed plan, and saved a perilous situation where a mistake 
might have meant a catastrophe. His persistence starved 
the allies out, forcing them to withdraw, and it was famine 
at last which compelled him to abandon Courtrai. Perhaps 
the happiest of his menacing demonstrations was when he 
brought his enemies to a point, that he might know whether 
they intended to retreat or attack, and when it was im- 
perative that his own action should be guided by their 
decision. Nor was the time while in the lines of Courtrai 
wasted, for he was busily drilling his troops and training 
them to the disciplined obedience which won the battle of 
Fontenoy. 

In 1745 the coalition against France was so formidable 
that Louis would willingly have signed a peace — the 
rather that the deaths of the shadowy Emperor Charles 
and of his staunch friend, the Bavarian Elector, had left 
him neither reason nor pretext for interfering in German 
affairs. The young Elector had deserted him, yielding to 
force majeure and an Austrian invasion. So the King 
would gladly have come to terms, but the Queen of 
Hungary was obdurate. The war was to go on ; the 
storm was to burst on his northern fortresses, and the 
sole question was which was to be attacked first. All the 
allied generals had been changed ; the youthful Duke of 
Cumberland, eager for honour, had replaced the veteran 
Wade, and he was on the best terms with his colleagues. 
The old Austrian Marshal was complaisant, and the young 
Prince of Waldeck was venturesome as himself. The 
danger to France was fully realised, and for once the back- 
biters of Versailles were silenced, Saxe was nominated 



MARSHAL SAXE 229 

commander-in-chief with universal assent or acquiescence, 
and the Due de Noailles set a noble example by volun- 
teering to serve under his former pupil. At the critical 
moment Saxe again paid the penalty of his excesses, and was 
stretched on a sick-bed. But the spirit and the love of 
glory triumphed over disease ; he defied the doctors, and 
set out for Flanders, saying in reply to remonstrances that 
it was not a question of living but of leaving. When he 
reached his headquarters at Maubeuge he was still so ill 
that he had to be carried about on his rounds of inspection 
in a litter. Fortunately he found a canon of Cambrai who 
put him on a regimen which soon enabled him to mount 
a horse. 

His strength was 70,000 foot and 25,000 horse. His 
purpose was to deceive the allies, and for a time he suc- 
ceeded. Making a show of menacing Mons in force, he 
marched straight upon Tournai. A masterpiece of the 
science Oi Vauban, it was one of the most formidable 
fortresses in Europe. Tournai was to be the stake of the 
battle of Fontenoy, for if it fell it opened French Hainault 
to the invader. When the allies began to realise that it 
was the real objective of Saxe, their hesitation had wasted 
time, and they were delayed besides by the deluges of rain 
which swamped the country except the paved chauss/es. 
They marched from Brussels, gathering in garrisons on the 
way, and the march, even for those days, was a miracle 
of slowness. Saxe, with prompt knowledge of all their 
movements, had ample time to make his arrangements. 
His position before Tournai, naturally strong, was 
strengthened according to the rules he had laid down in 
his " Reveries." The village of Fontenoy, to the south of the 



230 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Scheldt, was at once recognised on both sides as the key 
of the defence. From the first it was the aim of the aUies 
to carry it ; of the French to hold it at any cost ; and at 
Fontenoy the battle was to be lost or won. There were 
ridges stretching thence to the left and right. That to 
Saxe's left, from Fontenoy to the wood of Barri, which 
the allies unfortunately neglected to occupy when they had 
the opportunity, was 620 yards in length. The ridge on 
the right led to the village of Antoing on the right bank 
of the Scheldt and five miles from Tournai. Antoing was 
also in the woodlands, and was protected by inundations, 
but besides that it was formidably entrenched ; some of the 
cottages were levelled to make plateaux for the artillery, 
and the others were loopholed. As to his left the Marshal's 
mind might be easy ; it was covered by marshes and 
almost impenetrable thickets. Yet with his usual caution, 
everywhere he had thrown out advanced pickets and 
patrols of the light horse of the regiment of his trusted 
lieutenant De Grassins, Saxe had no great faith — it was 
always a weapon used against him by his detractors — in 
the steadiness of Frenchmen in line against a determined 
onset. In his " Reveries " he had ridiculed entrenched 
camps, and advocated the use of improvised redoubts. 
At Fontenoy he put those principles in practice. Between 
Antoing and the Barri Wood was a chain of redoubts, three 
to the right of Fontenoy and as many to the left of it. 
They were connected with abattis of felled timber. All 
the redoubts were heavily armed with cannon ; but the 
strongest was that next to Fontenoy on the left, known as 
the redoubt of Eu because it was held by the Eu Regiment ; 
for the passage between the Eu redoubt and Fontenoy was 



MARSHAL SAXE 231 

notoriously the weakest point in the defence. Nor did the 
Marshal neglect to secure his rear or his retreat. Twenty 
thousand men in the trenches held the garrison of Tournai, 
and two fortified bridges had been thrown across the river. 

Louis himself was in the field, and unaccompanied by 
ladies. A summons sent to Douai had hastily called him 
to the front. He came, and for once he showed something 
of manhood. He visited the sick in hospital ; he con- 
descended to taste the ammunition bread. On the eve of 
the battle he rode with Saxe along the lines, hailed by voci- 
ferous shouts of " Vive le Roi." They cheered the monarch, 
not the general, but it was a striking counterpart of the 
salvos and feux de bivouac which greeted Napoleon on the 
eve of Austerlitz. Saxe's dispositions had been made, 
though in some trifling respects they were to be modified. 
The pick of his men were between Fontenoy and the Eu 
redoubt. These were battalions of the Regiment of Le 
Roi, of the Gardes Fran9aise, and of the Gardes Suisse. 
Behind them were the cavalry, four ranks deep, and beyond 
these again the famous horse of the Royal Household. 
The reserves were on the left flank, in rear of the wood of 
Barri, and in the first line were the regiments of the Irish 
Brigade, mustering nearly 4000 men. 

Late on the 9th May the allies were almost in touch 
with the French, pitching the camp on the heights com- 
manding their positions. The same evening the generals 
rode out to reconnoitre. They saw the ground mapped 
out below them, and shaped their plans, deciding on the 
true point of attack. As a preliminary the village of 
Veyon, a fortified advance post of Fontenoy, was to be 
taken, and that was done on the following morning. They 



2 32 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

burned another fortified hamlet and won the first trick of 
the game. 

On the night of the loth both armies lay on their arms. 
Broken by fatigue and scarcely convalescent, after the 
long promenade on horseback with the King, Saxe retired 
not to his tent but to his coach to snatch some necessary 
sleep. All his preparations have now been made, and his 
50,000 are behind his formidable works. For himself, he 
is unable to mount a horse ; he is carried, a cripple, from 
point to point, suffering acutely from dropsy and parched 
with unquenchable thirst. The allies, on their side, were 
early astir ; the reveille sounded at two, and at four 
Cumberland and Count Konigsegg were riding along their 
lines. Cumberland had to curb his impatience, for the 
battle-ground was veiled in a heavy mist. His simple plan 
was marked out for him. The Dutch and Austrians were 
to assail Antoing on the left. The right attack was en- 
trusted to Colonel Ingoldsby of the Guards, and in his 
brigade were the Black Watch and a crack Hanoverian 
regiment. The Duke himself was to strike with British 
and Hanoverians at the vital gap between Fontenoy and 
Veyon. The advance should have been simultaneous, but 
it was not till six that the sluggish Ingoldsby was in 
motion. Then he came to a dead halt in a hollow lane, 
between Veyon and Barri Wood. He sent back for cannon 
and he had them ; order after order reached him, but still 
he stuck fast or only moved forward to halt again, 
Cumberland galloped off in person to discover the cause 
of the delays, but nothing came of his conversation with 
Ingoldsby. The brigade was still in that hollow lane, 
though the guns had been searching the wood of Barri, 



MARSHAL SAXE 233 

which was held in doubtful force, but strongly defended 
by the abattis. Cumberland would wait no longer. Four 
cannon shot gave the expected signal. The Dutch cavalry 
on the left advanced on Fontenoy and Antoing, but en- 
countered such a scorching fire that they turned bridle and 
rode back. Nor had the British horsemen to the right of 
the centre attack any better fortune. No sooner had they 
emerged from the street of Veyon than they were beaten 
back by the murderous storm of grape and round shot 
from the batteries of Fontenoy and the redoubt of Eu. 
Re-formed by their leaders in the rear of the infantry, 
Cumberland never asked anything of them till too late, 
and thenceforth they were virtually out of the battle. 

All the work was left to the central attack, directed on 
the points whence the murderous cannonade was con- 
verging, and the constancy neither of the chiefs nor their 
soldiers was shaken by the discomfiture on either flank. 
The fiery veteran Ligonier led his foot over the track of 
Campbell's horse through the street of Veyon. When they 
emerged, as the cavalry had emerged, into the blasting fire, 
they deployed and formed into line of battle as coolly as 
if they had been on parade at Hounslow. Yet the man- 
oeuvring was slow and lasted long ; four hours had elapsed 
before they were in array of battle. At last began the 
memorable advance of the immortal column of Fontenoy. 
Ingoldsby still lagged, and both columns of the Dutch and 
Austrian infantry had recoiled before the fire from Fontenoy, 
and were raked besides by batteries from beyond the 
Scheldt. All that passed had only hardened the deter- 
mination of Cumberland. The gap above him must be 
forced, and the redoubt of Eu must be captured at any 



2 34 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

cost. Then he abandoned his right attack, and brought 
his right wing along the slopes under the incessant fire, 
anticipating a movement of Wellington at Vittoria. The 
Black Watch was sent to the left, to stiffen the Dutch, who 
had orders to try again. The Prince of Waldeck was hot 
enough, but even with the example of the Highlanders he 
could not animate his men. The Highlanders, weary of 
standing helpless under a galling fire, crossed at the double, 
gave a lead to the Dutch, and rushed headlong upon the 
entrenchments of Fontenoy. When within musket-shot 
they fell with faces on the ground, escaped the volley that 
passed over them, and tumbled headlong over the first 
breastwork. Fronting ranks of the enemy five deep, they 
had no choice but to withdraw, to find the Dutch who 
should have supported them already out of the action. 

Meantime the main attack was progressing. There 
were 16,000 of them in the column, with Cumberland at 
their head. The butcher of CuUoden might be execrated 
for inhumanity, but no man could ever call him a coward. 
The ranks were riddled by the fire from Fontenoy in front 
and from the redoubt on flank. The men were literally 
mown down in swaths ; but still the gaps refilled and the 
ranks re-formed, and all the time, with men harnessed for 
horses, they were dragging twelve field-pieces up the ascent. 
Infantry rushed on them in vain ; cavalry were hurled 
back in confusion. When they topped the crest, the 
French stood facing them within thirty paces. Then there 
was a charge. The French were taken aback at sight of 
the cannon. The guns belched grape among them at close 
quarters, the musketeers poured in a deadly volley ; the 
front rank of the enemy is said to have gone down as one 



MARSHAL SAXE 235 

man ; the files behind looked back over their shoulders to 
see their cavalry reserves full 600 yards in the rear ; they 
scattered, and the d/bdcle was greeted by a thunderous 
British cheer. 

The British had passed the batteries on either side, 
and stood victorious on the key of the positions. In fact, 
the battle was well-nigh won had our allies done their duty 
and had the cavalry been called into action in time. So 
Saxe believed, and for a moment his counsels were those 
of despair. Louis and his son had been watching the battle 
from the eminence still known as the Gallows Hill ; Saxe 
sent to pray them to save themselves beyond the Scheldt, 
which both declined to do. On the contrary, they hastily 
called a council of war. Owing probably to the advice 
of Count Lowendahl it was resolved to make a supreme 
effort, though Fontenoy had already exhausted its shot 
and was firing blank cartridge. The Household Cavalry 
were rallied for a final frontal charge. Thanks to some 
anonymous inspiration, guns that had been standing idle 
were brought up to shower grape on the assailants. There 
could be no reply from our own batteries, for they were 
enclosed in the hollow square into which our column had 
been formed. As the Dutch were playing simply the role 
of spectators, the French Marshal could withdraw his 
regiments on the right. His reserves, and notably the 
Irish, who had been boihng over with impatience to get at 
their hereditary foes, were called over from the left. The 
combined attack was overwhelming on men faint with 
hunger and weary with unparalleled exertions and hard 
fighting. The shattered column, reduced by 5000, yielded 
with sullen reluctance to irresistible pressure. The retreat 



236 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

was effected with the same perfect discipline which had 
marked the advance ; Fontenoy brought more honour to 
the British and Hanoverians than many a glorious victory ; 
the guns dragged up the hill had to be abandoned for 
there were not horses to bring them away, but no colours 
were lost, and the French made few prisoners. 

The allies retired to Ath, though they did not remain 
there. The French were not slow to press their advantage. 
Saxe has been censured for not immediately following up 
the retreat, but the columns showed so formidable a front 
that it would have been hazardous to press them with his 
shattered battalions. Moreover, the Dutch had taken such 
excellent care of themselves that they had some 20,000 
unbroken men on his right flank. Naturally there was 
great jubilation among the victors. Not only had they 
won the decisive battle, but for the first time they had 
beaten the English in a fair field. As the King had 
reviewed the ranks on the eve of the battle, so now with 
the Dauphin he rode along the lines to still more vociferous 
cheering, though the numbers had been sadly thinned by 
death, and the ridge was strewed with the wounded. One 
man was missing from his brilliant staff ; Saxe had been 
borne on a litter to his tent, for with the relaxation of the 
strain he had broken down. The day for him had been a 
triumph of energy over feebleness and pain. Next morning 
he had so far rallied as to be carried in his wicker chair 
into the royal presence. Kneeling, he ejaculated in falter- 
ing accents, " Sire, I have lived long enough — I have lived 
to see your Majesty victorious." Then, glancing round on 
the blood-stained scene of the reception, he said : " Now, 
sire, you see the meaning of a battle." Louis, overflowing 



MARSHAL SAXE 237 

with gratitude for once, raised the hero, and embraced 
him on either cheek. Nor did his gratitude stop there. 
He deigned to address the Marshal as " my cousin " ; by 
solemn brevet, with many gracious preliminaries, he con- 
ferred on him and on his wife, should he marry, the privi- 
lege of entry into the Louvre in their coaches, and to the 
lady the right of the seat on the tabouret in presence of 
their Majesties and the children of France. But there were 
substantial rewards besides, more grateful to the impecu- 
nious soldier of fortune than relaxations of court etiquette. 
The chateau of Chambord, with its wide domains, was 
conferred on him ; there were additions to the pensions 
he already enjoyed, and he was appointed Governor of 
Alsace with a salary of 120,000 livres. 

Tournai held out for a little longer, but surrendered 
on the 22nd May. The fall of the great fortress was 
followed up by the capture of Ghent, by the surrender of 
Bruges, Oudenarde, and Ostend. They all fell to Lowen- 
dahl, by far the ablest of Saxe's lieutenants. Finally Ath, 
the last bulwark of West Flanders, succumbed, and the 
successive shocks to British prestige were felt severely in 
England. Saxe, though incapable of great effort, had 
remained with the army, but his brain was active, and his 
presence caused the allied generals much anxiety. As the 
winter approached, their strength was rapidly weakened. 
Cumberland, after many entreaties, had gone to take com- 
mand against the Scottish rebellion. Waldeck was left in 
charge, with a slender contingent of Hessians under Lord 
Dunmore. He looked forward to a peaceable winter. 
Saxe, as he knew, with his marvellous vitality had become 
another man ; after a flying visit to Paris he was at Ghent, 



238 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

indulging in all manner of excesses, making volatile love 
with the verve of the roue of the Regency, and having the 
troupe of actors who generally attended him playing to 
crowded houses. On a sudden, in the dead of the Flemish 
winter, news came to Waldeck that his enemy, changing 
from one of his roles to the other, and violating all the 
rules of war, was laying siege to Brussels. Brussels capitu- 
lated, and its surrender was followed by the capture of 
Vilvorde with all the field-guns and magazines of the 
allies. That closed the brief and brilliant winter campaign. 
Saxe was back again in Paris, to be embraced by the King 
and to be applauded to the echo by an overflowing house 
when he made his first appearance at the opera. 

Next spring the King would again willingly have made 
peace, but again Maria Theresa would hear nothing of it. 
Charles of Lorraine was on the Rhine with 50,000 Im- 
perialists. Saxe was in the field again, and Louis again 
came to the Netherlands. The campaign opened with the 
taking of Antwerp, left with only a feeble garrison. Then 
came the capture of the great fortress of Namur, only four 
days after opening the trenches. Meantime, Charles of 
Lorraine was drawing near and Waldeck had been rein- 
forced. Twenty thousand Hessians and Hanoverians had 
joined him in his camp at Breda, and Ligonier brought back 
a British contingent of six regiments of the line and four 
of cavalry. The allied armies effected their junction, 
though too late to save Namur. Their purpose was to 
winter in Liege, and that of Saxe to force them back across 
the Meuse. They took up a strong position, at once com- 
manding Liege and covering Maestricht. Then Saxe, who, 
though habitually cautious, could nevertheless be audacious 



MARSHAL SAXE 239 

in an emergency, determined to bring on a battle. All 
told, the allies mustered 100,000, but they stretched in thin, 
straggling formation along a line of wooded hills, cut up 
by deep ravines or impracticable gullies ; and in fact the 
Austrians on the extreme left, observed by a detached 
body of French, were virtually out of the fighting. 

On October 11 the battle began with a French attack 
on the left, which, storming through a suburb of Li^ge, 
turned the left flank of the allies. The Dutch, as at Fon- 
tenoy, made but indifferent resistance. Saxe's attack on 
the centre was delayed by the perverse obstinacy of Count 
Clermont, but early in the afternoon his twelve brigades 
rushed impetuously forward in three columns. They 
were driven back by tremendous discharges of artillery and 
musketry. Saxe had exposed himself like any private, 
and his spirit animated his soldiers for another advance. 
The second attempt, with a concentration of superior 
numbers, proved successful, the villages of Rocoux and 
Vorax were carried, and the allied centre was broken. 
Still the British and the German contingents under the 
gallant Ligonier retired slowly, offering a determined resist- 
ance. But French colours were showing on the heights to 
the left, the French artillery fire had scattered the Dutch 
cavalry, a few thousand Bavarians had broken their ranks 
and fled, and Ligonier's battalions, caught up by the rabble 
of fugitives, were involved in the panic flight. The rush 
was for the three pontoon bridges thrown over the Meuse, 
and many of the fugitives were drowned in the river. At 
five o'clock the allies had been driven from all their posts, 
and Saxe ordered up his cavalry for the pursuit. But the 
autumn night was coming on, and his horsemen drew rein 



240 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

at the ravines. Estimates of the losses on either side 
vary amazingly. The French author of Saxe's Memoirs says 
the allies left 12,000 dead and lost 3000 prisoners, while 
the French had but 1000 killed. Considering the obstinate 
fighting in the centre, the last statement is incredible. 
More probable calculations place the whole casualties of 
the allies at between 5000 and 6000, and those of the 
French at about two-thirds of that number. A decree of 
the King conferred on Saxe the title of " Most Serene 
Highness," and six of the captured guns went to Chambord, 
to be mounted on the terrace of the chateau. 

The war continued, to the satisfaction of Saxe as was 
believed, for he was always eager for honours and glory. 
In March he was formally gazetted Marshal-General in 
command of the army of the Low Countries, Louis had 
issued a lengthy proclamation, setting forth in honeyed 
words his concern for the interests of Holland, but ending 
with an unmistakable hint that he contemplated nothing 
short of its conquest, unless it asked for peace upon terms 
of his dictation. Cumberland was back and nominally in 
command of the allies, but now he was embarrassed at every 
step by the obstruction and jealousy of his colleagues. 
Now, however, the Dutch were thoroughly alarmed ; 
William of Orange-Nassau, the son-in-law of King George, 
had been elected Stadtholder, and fresh levies were being 
hurried into the field. Already the French were afoot and 
active. Saxe in consultation at Versailles had sketched 
out his plan of campaign. Lowendahl had his orders, 
while Saxe was still at Versailles, and was threatening 
the fortresses in Dutch Flanders. When the attention of 
the allies was diverted thither, Saxe in command of the 



MARSHAL SAXE 241 

main army was to lay siege to Maestricht and strike into 
South Holland. Lowendahl acted with his habitual celerity 
and more than his usual good fortune. Fortress after 
fortress fell to him, and when Saxe joined his army, he 
found his left already secured. The allies, after sundry 
vain demonstrations, had given up their designs on Antwerp, 
and had to content themselves with moving eastward to 
cover Maestricht. 

Conflicting counsels had paralysed their operations, and 
indeed they were greatly inferior in numbers. When Louis 
reached Brussels, whither Saxe had preceded him, he 
reviewed 140,000 men who had passed the winter in com- 
fortable quarters. The great army marched from Brussels 
for Maestricht. Saxe anticipated the allies in occupying 
Tongres, where Cumberland had intended to establish his 
headquarters. Then the opposing forces found themselves 
face to face. Their battle-field lay open between them, and 
when King Louis came to Tongres, he rode over the ground 
which Saxe had surveyed and carefulty studied. From 
the heights above the village of Henderen, on which his 
infantry were arrayed in a double line, the King could 
trace the positions of the allies, who now mustered 90,000. 
Their right extended westward, along the opposite ridge ; 
their left was pointing towards Maestricht. They had 
occupied all the villages in their front, with Laffeldt held 
strongly as the key of their position. But it was no equal 
match. Besides being outnumbered by nearly a third, 
they were wearied by fruitless countermarching, and aware 
of the dissensions between their leaders, whereas the French 
were in high heart and spirits, fighting under the eyes of 
their sovereign and led by their invincible Marshal. The 



242 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Austrians were on the right, the Dutch on the left, while 
in the centre behind Laffeldt were the British, the Hano- 
verians, and the Hessians. Saxe's infantry still stood 
ranged along the Henderen heights, extended on the right 
to the village of Rymps and overlapping the Dutch ; 
R3anps was strongly entrenched and occupied, and repelled 
an attack by the Dutch on the eve of the battle. The 
battle may be briefly described, and the result was almost 
a foregone conclusion. On the morning of the 2nd July 
the French were moving early, but it was ten o'clock ere 
the action began. Then Saxe launched a furious attack 
on Laffeldt. Three times the village was won ; thrice was 
it recovered as reserves came up. But the reserves gave 
out, and Saxe had still fresh regiments to call upon. 
Heading that charge in person, and supporting it with 
concentrated artillery fire, Laffeldt changed hands for the 
last time, and so by noon the day was virtually won. 

Cumberland strove to save it by ordering a charge of 
the Dutch horse from the centre. They were charged in 
turn by the heavy French cavalry from either side, over- 
ridden, and hunted back, while the Frenchmen never drew 
rein till they had met in the allied centre. Then there was 
nothing for it but retreat up©n Maestricht. The retreat 
was becoming a rout, when the rabble of fugitives was 
saved by a gallant onset of Ligonier at the head of four 
regiments of dragoons. Not only were the French cavalry 
checked in the full flush of a jubilant chase, but they left 
five of their standards behind. The gallant Ligonier, 
always in the thick of the fight, was unhorsed and taken 
prisoner. Saxe received him with chivalrous courtesy. 
Presenting him to the King, he said : " Here, sire, is a man 
who by a single splendid action has upset all my plans." 



MARSHAL SAXE 243 

Nor were the words an empty compliment. Laffeldt 
was no decisive battle, and Maestricht, though always 
threatened, was still safe. Meantime the interest had 
centred in West Flanders. Lowendahl was laying siege to 
Bergen-op-Zoom, a virgin fortress, deemed impregnable, and 
the masterpiece of Cohorn's science. The Dutch, in the 
depths of depression, urged the allies to raise the siege. 
The King sent peremptory orders to Saxe that the place 
must be taken at any cost, Lowendahl staked fame and 
fortune on a desperate hazard. The allies were advancing ; 
the defences were yet unbreached, but he ordered a general 
assault at daybreak. Bergen-op-Zoom was taken, he won 
the coveted baton of Marshal, but stained his reputation 
to all time by the atrocities he permitted on the helpless 
inhabitants. Louis is said to have shrunk from con- 
nivance in the guilt, but Saxe, when consulted, spoke 
out with his usual decision. " Sire, there is no middle 
course ; you must either hang him or make him Marshal 
of France." 

Louis had for years been longing for peace, and again the 
succession of victories enabled him to make honourable 
advances. Ligonier had been employed as an intermediary, 
and King George lent a willing ear. Indeed Louis' pro- 
positions were so generous as to disarm reasonable opposi- 
tion, for he offered as the basis of a treaty reversion to the 
status quo ante. In the spring of 1748 the negotiations were 
progressing, but none the less, Saxe had been preparing 
for war. The capture of Maestricht he declared to be 
an indispensable preliminary to any treaty, and the city 
was closely invested on either bank of the Meuse. But 
on May Day news came to the camps of the French and 
the allies that the peace preliminaries had been actually 



244 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

signed at Aix-la-Chapelle. Saxe received an envoy with 
proposals for an armistice and the surrender of Maestricht. 
His acceptance was ratified by Louis, and on May lo 
Maestricht was given over. 

The Marshal was by no means satisfied to see much of 
his work undone. Holland had good reason to be gratified, 
for Bergen-op-Zoom and Maestricht, her bulwarks on the 
western and eastern borders, were to be given back, Saxe 
protested in vain against terms he deemed dishonourable. 
Undoubtedly personal considerations weighed with him as 
much as politics and patriotism. He loved war, and had a 
passion for fame and celebrity. Now he saw his occupa- 
tion gone and the field of honour finally closed to him. 
Reluctantly he sheathed his sword and retired to his 
chateau of Chambord. 

There he lived en prince and grand seigneur. Louis 
had not been backward in gratitude or generosity, and he 
was in enjoyment of a splendid income. He still played 
at soldiering — as Napoleon when locked up in Elba — with 
his own regiment, the Volunteers of Saxe, which he had 
raised in 1743. To his shame and scandal, as it was after- 
wards to prove, he indulged his tastes for music and the 
drama. But these trivial distractions speedily palled on 
the restless spirit who had filled Europe with his fame. 
Among other schemes, more or less extravagant, he planned 
a settlement in Tobago, a starting-point for dreams of 
ambition in the other hemisphere. That scheme was 
promptly knocked on the head by the natural objections of 
England and Holland. There was nothing left the old 
rou^ but to fall back on dissipation, and with a constitution 
worn-out by war and dissipation he reverted to the excesses 
of his youth. Four years before his death it was his mis- 



MARSHAL SAXE 245 

fortune to become the victim of a senile and devouring 
passion. He fell in love with the beautiful young wife of 
his theatrical impresario. Unfortunately for his fame, the 
lady was virtuous and her husband an honest man. They 
were proof alike against threats and magnificent offers. 
Saxe stooped to abuse his great position, and fell into the 
fashion of the court favourites of the day. He hunted his 
helpless dependant into hiding, wearied by lawsuits to be 
decided by servile judges, and sent the hapless beauty to 
a convent under a lettre de cachet. By the irony of fate 
that was the last memorable incident in the career of the 
hero of Fontenoy. He died on 30th November 1750 in his 
bed at Chambord, with the calm courage and the dignity 
with which he would have met death on the battle-field. 

There was universal mourning in France as the news 
was slowly circulated. By a clause in the Marshal's will 
his body was to be cremated in quicklime, in imitation of 
Saint Monica, but it was disregarded by the executors. 
The corpse was embalmed and enclosed in triple coffins of 
lead, copper, and iron-bound mahogany. The heart was in 
a silver case, the entrails in another casket. For a month 
there was a sort of lying in state ; then in the depth of 
winter the stately funeral cortege set out from Chambord 
for Strasburg. As during the waiting at Chambord guard 
had been mounted as when the Marshal was alive, and 
guns fired every half-hour, now the coaches were escorted 
by a squadron of light dragoons, and after a month's march 
in wild, stormy weather and over difficult roads, it was met 
in the environs of Strasburg by the garrison and all the 
dignitaries, military and civil. The Protestant hero, who 
had held fast to his faith, was buried in the Lutheran church 
of St. Thomas. 



VIII 

INDIAN ADVENTURERS 

The growth of standing armies in the eighteenth century 
closed Europe to the adventurous spirits who, as wandering 
soldiers of fortune, changed their camps and their colours 
on a caprice. Simultaneously a wider field was opening to 
daring ambitions. The East, with its fabled wealth and all 
its wonderful possibilities, lay before them. France and 
England had carried the continental wars into India, and 
Hindustan was in convulsions from the Himalayas to Cape 
Comorin. Never and nowhere had there been greater 
opportunities. Successive invasions from the north had 
shaken the Empire of the Moguls to its foundation. The 
final shock had come from the incursions of Sivagie's 
" rats," as Sir John Malcolm called them, a race of pre- 
datory warriors of roving instincts, slight of frame com- 
pared to Sikhs or Rajpoots, but distinguished for craft and 
courage, and admirable fighting material. The representa- 
tive of the Mogul Emperors had become the shadow of a 
mighty power, held in honourable tutelage at Delhi by 
the Peishwah who reigned at Poona, the head of the great 
loose Mahratta confederation. For the Peishwah's feuda- 
tories, the Guikwar of Baroda, Scindiah of Gwahor, Holkar 
of Indore, the Rajahs of Berar and Nagpore, habitually set 

him at defiance. The Nizam of Hyderabad ruled the 

246 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 247 

largest state in India, and between the Deccan and the 
Carnatic Hyder AH, as Sultan of Mysore, one of the ablest 
of Oriental soldiers of fortune, had set up a dynasty of his 
own, apparently on sohd foundations. All these powers 
and principahties, unknitted by old relations and uncon- 
fined by ancient landmarks, were in a state of chronic 
collision. Moreover, every one of them was distracted by 
intestine feuds and broils. The palaces were the scenes of 
perpetual intrigue, and the death of a ruler, if he survived 
dagger or poison, was almost invariably the cause of a 
contested succession. 

In all its conditions and circumstances the India of 
the time resembled the Italy that was the prey of the 
Condottieri. Afghan and Arab mercenaries flocked to the 
standards of chiefs who lured them by the promise of 
plunder. Naturally their services were most in demand 
in states comparatively unwarlike, where they terrorised 
the peaceful population. But the whole Indian peninsula 
was in a far more lamentable state than that of Germany 
in the worst of the Thirty Years' War. Law there was 
none and violence was right. The restless Mahrattas were 
always raiding their neighbours, giving no quarter where 
resistance was offered, and showing no pity where booty 
was to be got. And the ravages of the Mahrattas were 
surpassed by the Pindaries, who were robbers and land 
pirates, pure and simple. Meadows Taylor, who had 
studied his subjects well, gives a vivid and revolting picture 
of their ruthless cruelties and their enormous gains. His 
Thug in the " Confessions " follows the fortunes of Chef 00, 
one of their most notable leaders, and even the Thug was 
moved to compassion and revenge by the horrors he 



248 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

witnessed. Cities were laid under contribution as by the 
Condottieri, and if by policy they were spared immediate 
sack, the municipalities and merchants must pay enormous 
ransoms in specie. There was a certain rude justice among 
themselves ; the booty was promptly distributed, and 
though the leaders took the lion's share, each horseman's 
saddle was stuffed with coin or jewels. Sometimes the 
plunder was so great that there was difficulty in disposing 
of it. Proverbially faithless, the only instances in which 
the Pindarics kept their faith was when they summoned 
the shopkeepers or merchants to a bazaar. Then the very 
men who had been expioiU elsewhere might recoup them- 
selves in a measure by buying cheaply the booty of which 
others had been stripped. But the speciality of the 
Pindarics was their stooping to the most paltry robbery 
and revelling in wanton mischief. The peasant, with his 
silver ornaments or his handful of rupees, was compelled 
to surrender his little savings by nameless tortures. 
Whether the villages resisted or no, they were burned all 
the same, the women were violated, the most attractive 
carried off, the fruit-trees were felled, and the tanks were 
breached. And these robber hordes were more or less in 
open alliance with the potentates who offered them a safe 
retreat in consideration of a handsome commission on 
their plunder. 

That was the India which had opened to European 
adventurers. At first the French had it all their own 
way. The English in Hindustan were a scattered handful 
of traders, sheltering in fortified ports on the coast, paying 
tribute to despots from whom they only bought toleration 
and trading license. The French were represented by 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 249 

statesmen and soldiers with far-reaching ambitions which 
they pushed indefatigably. It is to Lally, Bourdonnais, 
and Dupleix that we are indebted for the Empire, won by 
a merchant company to be surrendered to the Crown. 
Had Dupleix been appreciated at Versailles and adequately 
supported, Hindustan might now have been a French 
dependency. As it was, he had made himself for a time 
the virtual sovereign of Southern Hindustan, and it was 
his overshadowing authority and his masterful aggressions 
which forced us into conflict for self-preservation. For- 
tunately we found men who could rise to the emergency, 
and Clive and Hastings came to the rescue. 

But it was Dupleix who had showed them the way to 
win. As Macaulay has indicated, he was the first to realise 
what could be done in those scenes of unregulated turmoil 
by disciplining native levies imder European leading. 
Clive, Coote of Wandewash, and Lake of Liswari had 
adopted his methods and practice, when they gained 
victories against overwhelming odds with battalions of 
Bengalees and Madrasees, stiffened with the sweepings of 
our gaols and gutters. The memorable defence of Arcot 
was the turning-point. But in military methods Dupleix 
only pointed the way. He was a statesman and a skilful 
diplomat, but no soldier. It was De Boigne, a soldier first 
of all, though scarcely less able in diplomacy, who was 
the first to discipline the wild Indian hordes, and form 
them into something like the battalions of King Louis. 
De Boigne was emphatically a soldier of fortune. A 
Savoyard of noble birth, he had served his apprenticeship 
to arms in the Irish Brigade. But slow promotion dis- 
gusted him, as afterwards when he engaged under the 



250 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

British colours in India. In the interval he had tried his 
fortunes with the Russians, when he came again to what 
he fancied was a deadlock. But circumstances had made 
him a friend in Lord Percy, which seemed to offer a career 
in India, and with strong introductions, at the age of 
twenty-seven, in 1778 he landed at Madras. After some 
difficulties the Savoyard was given a commission in a 
regiment of native infantry, but there also the promotion 
was by seniority, and after holding it for a year or two, 
he threw it up. He had been court-martialled and con- 
demned on a charge of which he was subsequently acquitted, 
and the unmerited misfortune recommended him to the 
favourable notice of Warren Hastings, who gave him 
credentials to our resident at Lucknow. He had been 
baulked before in his intentions of travelling overland to 
India ; now he hoped to accomplish the journey in the 
reverse direction, through Afghanistan, the Turcoman 
Khanates, and Persia. He was passed on to the camp of 
Scindiah, who was then laying siege to his own future 
stronghold of Gwalior. Favoured at first, he fell under 
suspicion, and happily for him, was waylaid by Scindiah's 
order, and robbed of all he possessed. So his projects of 
travel came to an end. It would be a long story to tell, 
how he soon afterwards made his peace with the most 
powerful of the Mahrattas. I only advert in passing to 
the foreign adventurers in India. But De Boigne knew 
how to make himself indispensable ; his master was wise 
enough to value the servant, and formidable as Scindiah 
had been before, De Boigne with his well-drilled battalions 
made the Maharajah supreme in those parts, and immensely 
extended his dominions. A great strategist and able 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 251 

tactician, his coolness was equal to his courage, and like 
Marlborough he never lost his presence of mind in the 
most critical emergencies. Like Gordon, he led " an in- 
vincible army." His soldiers were devoted to a leader 
who, during eighteen years of incessant fighting, had never 
lost a battle. But the strain and the climate told on his 
health, and he resolved to return to Europe. He left India 
at the apogee of his greatness. Scindiah ruled the central 
provinces, De Boigne ruled Scindiah, and there was a time 
when the adventurer had taken the Mogul under his pro- 
tection. His genius had been great, and oddly enough, 
while continually in the field, he had been running a 
lucrative mercantile business in Lucknow. Yet the fortune 
he took home, though large, was not excessive ; it is said 
to have fallen short of half a million. For though he has 
been, perhaps unreasonably, taxed with avarice, he knew 
the wisdom of dazzling Orientals, and had lived en prince 
in magnificent state with open-handed hospitality. What 
was less usual in those times, he retired with a tolerably 
clear conscience. He had kept his soldiers well in hand, 
and had invariably shown clemency to the vanquished. 
Even if he had sinned, he made practical atonement. 
Welcomed by his countrymen and honoured by his sove- 
reign, he bought an estate near his native Chambery, and 
distinguished himself in his declining years by philanthropy 
and munificent benefactions. 

We shall frequently come across his compatriot Perron 
in tracing the careers of Anglo-Indian soldiers. Perron, the 
son of a bankrupt, trod in De Boigne's steps, and was his 
pupil in statecraft and the art of war. Decidedly his 
inferior in both, he was nevertheless more successful from 



2 52 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

a worldly point of view, and like his master he returned 
to his native France, but with a very much larger fortune. 
When De Boigne parted from Scindiah he succeeded to 
the command of the army his master had made. Then it 
numbered nearly 50,000 disciplined infantry and cavalry. 
Nominally the general of Scindiah, he established his per- 
sonal sovereignty over territories stretching far into the 
Punjaub and comprehending great part of the Doab. His 
revenues are said to have fallen little short of two millions, 
and he prudently remitted great part of his economies to 
France. Victorious in twelve or fourteen battles, his 
troops were never beaten till he measured swords with 
the English. His growing power was regarded with such 
apprehension by Lord Wellesley that Perron may be said 
to have been the cause of the Mahratta wars. Then his 
star paled rapidly before those of Wellesley and Lake, and 
at Assaye, Aligarh, and the crowning victory of Liswari, 
the veteran regiments De Boigne had trained were broken, 
scattered, or annihilated. 

One of Perron's most troublesome enemies, when he 
was at the height of his power, was George Thomas, the 
most remarkable of the British soldiers of fortune — and 
their beginnings were almost identical. Both went out to 
India before the mast ; both ran from their ships and 
went up country to seek military service. But Thomas, a 
Tipperary man, was a common sailor who could neither 
read nor write ; he was always hampered and was ruined 
at last by the sailor's addiction to drink. Nevertheless, 
like Perron, he too made himself an independent prince, 
defying the potentates who had been his stepping-stones 
to fortune, and making formal treaties with adjacent states. 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 253 

When he deserted at Madras, he took refuge with the 
Pohgars in the hill-country of the Carnatic. Seeing no 
opening among those wild though warlike mountaineers, 
he found his way to Hyderabad, enlisting in the armies 
of the Nizam. There was no promotion there for the 
letterless private, and he left the Deccan for Delhi and 
the court of the Mogul. That lonely walk through a 
country ravaged by marauding bands must have been a 
marvellous achievement for a man who was tongue-tied, 
but his luck served him well, and he arrived at his destina- 
tion in safety. The Mogul Emperor, overshadowed by the 
menacing Mahrattas, had a splendid household, but could 
afford no regular army. More powerful feudatories had 
strengthened themselves in the immediate neighbourhood 
of Delhi. The most formidable of his neighbours was a 
lady who had in her pay some fairly disciplined battalions 
commanded by Europeans. With her the English sailor 
found the opening he sought. The notorious _^ Begum 
Samzoo was perhaps the most remarkable woman India 
ever produced, and her whole career was a marvel of 
romance, intertwined with those of European soldiers of 
fortune, and with that of Thomas in particular. It was 
she who gave Thomas his start, and he did her much good 
and evil. 

The Begum figures in many British biographies and 
reminiscences, but perhaps the best and most rehable 
account is given by Sleeman, though he takes an unduly 
favourable view of her character, and is inclined to gloss 
over her cruelty and her crimes. In a country and of a 
creed which condemn women to seclusion, she soon cast 
the conventionalities of the zenana behind her ; looked 



254 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

battle and danger boldly in the face unveiled, and led her 
own squadrons into action. As bewitching and winning as 
Emma, Lady Hamilton, in early youth, she had a masculine 
temperament, a passionate and sensuous nature, a heart 
of stone, and an inflexible will. She claimed descent from 
the Prophet of Islam, and her beauty as a girl is said to 
have been a byword. At Sardhana, some five and forty 
miles from Delhi, she took the fancy of the renegade Walter 
Reinhardt, who had adopted Oriental dress and manners. 
Reinhardt first added her to his harem, and then married 
her according to Mohammedan rites. He was the son of 
a Salzburg butcher ; he came out to India as a private 
in a French regiment, changed to the service of the East 
India Company, and rose to the rank of sergeant. It was 
the French who gave him the sobriquet of Sombre, from 
the swarthiness of his complexion, and he afterwards did 
us the honour of anglicising it as Somers. The Armenian 
prime minister of Meer Cossim, Nawab of Bengal, tempted 
him to a second desertion when that potentate was driven 
to break with the British by the high-handed proceedings 
of Mr. Ellis, chief of the factory at Patna. The war broke 
out and the Nawab took a terrible revenge on his enemy. 
The factory fell at the opening of the campaign : there was 
a tragedy as black as that of the Black Hole, and all the 
captives were condemned to death. Even the tyrant's 
native officers refused to butcher the helpless victims, but 
Sombre eagerly embraced the opportunity of ingratiating 
himself with his master. Meer Cossim was beaten in the 
ordinary course of the wars between the Company and 
its neighbours, and driven into Oude ; the Nawab of Gude 
was vanquished in turn, when Sombre left him and sought 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 255 

service in Rohilcund. A veritable Condottiere, among the 
warlike Rohillas he found means of levying several bat- 
talions, which he was always ready to hire out to the highest 
bidder. Europeans came to officer his companies, but 
they were the most ruffianly of a disreputable class. Abso- 
lutely illiterate like their chief, they were as seldom sober. 
Sleeman says that the men seldom got their pay, till 
they subjected their commandant to the peine forte et dure. 
They either sentenced him to cells, or rode him on a heated 
cannon without his trousers. It may be doubted if the 
method was invariably successful, for we know the proverb 
about Highlanders and their breeches, though if they 
could not find hard cash, they could generally borrow 
under threats from the bankers. Sombre showed rare skill 
and caution in trafficking in his mercenaries. He never 
risked them unnecessarily ; left his employers or allies to 
bear the brunt of the fighting, and then either passed 
over to the victors — for a price — or pressed forward to have 
his share of the plunder. 

He died in 1778, a wealthy man. He left one son of 
feeble intellect by a former marriage, and the widow who 
knew better than any woman in the world how to take 
her own part. Sombre's Pretorian Guards settled the 
succession. They chose the Begum for their leader by 
acclamation, and she heartily acceded to the call. Her 
position was legalised and confirmed by the Emperor Shere 
Alum. She had a succession of Heutenants — Italian, 
English, and French — and at last the subordinate com- 
mand fell to a Frenchman, Le Vaisseau, a gentleman of 
birth, education, and refinement. Half her troops were 
then at Sardhana, her place of residence, the other half in 



256 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

garrison at Delhi, where she had extended her protection 
to her liege lord. It was then she made the acquaintance 
of Thomas. 

The Begum, though her bloom was gone by, was still 
a beautiful woman. Even as an octogenarian she prided 
herself on some of her old attractions — specially on her 
hands, arms, and feet. Captain Mundy, an officer on 
Lord Combermere's staff, describes her as she was in 1827, 
when the Commander-in-Chief, an old acquaintance, paid 
his respects to her. " In person she is very short, and 
rather embonpoint ; her complexion is unusually fair, her 
features large and prominent, and their expression roguish 
and astute." She smoked a hookah, and at the head of 
her table entertained her visitors unveiled. " Indeed," 
Captain Mundy adds, " if the absence of all the softer 
qualities and the possession of the most fiery qualities, 
stubbornness of purpose and almost unexampled cruelty, 
can give her a claim to be numbered among the hardier 
sex, her right to virility will hardly be disputed." As to 
the cruelty, Mundy comes nearer to the truth than the 
more friendly Sleeman, who relates without comment a 
highly characteristic incident. The Begum was offended 
with two female slaves — historians differ as to the reason. 
She had them flogged till they fainted, waited till they 
recovered, and then buried them alive. Worse than the 
Thugs, who slept peacefully over strangled victims, "she 
arranged the execution for the evening meal, and spread 
her bedding over the grave, that she might baulk any 
attempt at deliverance." 

Thomas was then a handsome man, with the plausible 
manners of an Irishman and the mellifluous brogue of 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 257 

Tipperary. The Begum was not critical as to culture ; 
the soldier-Hke sailor took her fancy, and he soon found 
an opportunity of showing his quality in the field. By a 
gallant charge he saved the Emperor in a hard-fought 
battle with a rebel feudatory ; the Begum, who took the 
credit, recognised her debt. Le Vaisseau became jealous 
of Thomas' growing favour, and proposed marriage to his 
mistress, as the surest way of keeping the upper hand. 
Thomas in disappointment threw up his commission to 
start Condottiere on his own account. There was no lack 
of swordsmen to gather to his standard. Yet all the time 
he kept a watchful eye on the Begum and on the affairs of 
Sardhana. 

The menage of the newly-wedded couple had not worked 
smoothly. Le Vaisseau was over-fastidious for his place ; 
he refused to entertain at dinners and carouses his ruffianly 
European subordinates, which to say the least was bad 
policy. They leagued against him and headed a mutiny. 
Thomas had vindictively been egging them on, and pro- 
mising assistance if needful. The Begum found her posi- 
tion untenable, and determined on flight with her husband 
and valuables. She asked an asylum of the Company, 
like many other victims of mutinous intrigue, but the 
Governor-General hesitated ; to assist the flight of a 
servant of the Emperor might involve the Government in 
trouble. He instructed the agent at Delhi to endeavour 
to mediate in favour of the Begum with Scindiah, who 
was then virtually Prime Minister and master of the 
Mogul. Scindiah was open to a bribe, and ultimately came 
to terms. The lady was to be suffered to withdraw with 
her treasures ; the Mahratta prince was to take over her 



258 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

troops, and Le Vaisseau was to be received by the British 
as prisoner of war on parole. But the mutinous Delhi 
battalions had to be reckoned with, and they got wind of 
the intended escape. News was brought to Le Vaisseau 
that they were marching upon Sardhana, and he knew 
the fate that awaited him if he fell into their hands. He 
persuaded the Begum to lose no time, and they made a 
midnight flitting with a slender escort. 

Then occurred a mysterious tragedy from which the 
veil can never be lifted. Either the Begum was guilty 
of a most infamous crime or she was a much calumniated 
woman. Captain Skinner, a trustworthy witness, acquits 
her, but the weight of evidence is the other way, and the 
popular version has been generally accepted. She swore to 
her husband that she would live and die with him ; that 
she would stab herself to the heart rather than survive 
him. She showed him the dagger when she stepped into 
her palanquin. He mounted and rode beside her. They 
had barely set out when news was brought that their 
enemies were following hard on their traces. Le Vaisseau 
again asked his wife if she remained firm to her resolve. 
Again, for answer, she showed him the dagger. He could 
have ridden off and saved himself, but the answer decided 
him. The pursuers were close behind ; the Begum's 
female attendants were screaming ; Le Vaisseau stooped 
to look into the palanquin and saw his wife's white bosom- 
cloth stained with blood ; he drew a pistol and blew out 
his brains. Skinner says the dagger had glanced from the 
chest bone, and that she wanted courage to repeat the 
blow. The less charitable construction was that it was a 
marvellously clever piece of acting ; that she had plotted 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 259 

to get rid of an inconvenient spouse, and resume her wild 
and piquant liberty of action. 

Be that as it may, she had no immediate reason for 
satisfaction . Her captors treated her with extreme brutality 
—it may be presumed that they stripped her of all her 
valuables : for seven days she was chained under a gun 
and subjected to every sort of indignity. Then Thomas, 
who had sparks of chivalry in his nature, came swiftly to 
the rescue. He appealed to the common sense of the 
mutinous officers, who had elected the weak-minded son 
of Sombre to the leadership, telhng them that their only 
chance of maintaining themselves in independence at 
Sardhana was to replace the Begum in authority. They 
signed a paper promising devoted allegiance for the future, 
or rather they set their marks to it, for only one of them 
could subscribe his name. 

The man who could sign succeeded to the command, 
and the four battalions were multiplied to six. Still in a 
chronic state of mutiny, they invaded the Deccan with 
Scindiah, were cut up in successive actions, and finally 
lost their guns at Assaye. When the survivors rallied and 
came back the Begum made alliance with the British ; she 
formed arsenals and established a foundry for cannon. 
She managed her shaken finances well ; developed the 
resources of her territories, and not only paid her way 
and gave generously to many charitable objects, but 
accumulated the great fortune which, when bequeathed to 
her stepson, became the subject of the famous Dyce-Sombre 
lawsuit. We have seen Lord Combermere pay his respects 
to her at Sardhana when on a ceremonial tour, and have 
said that they were old acquaintances. She came to him 



2 6o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

with some of her battahons at the siege of Bhurtpore to 
offer assistance, which was courteously declined. It was 
supposed that she wished to have her share in the sack, 
and that, vulture-like, she scented the fabulous treasures 
which were believed, and not without credibility, to be 
buried within the walls of the famous stronghold. Nor 
would she have objected to take her part in the fighting. 
Undoubtedly his lordship had a great liking for her ; regard 
and admiration seem to have been mutual. She promised 
faithfully to remember him in her will — one of the many 
promises she failed to keep — and persuaded him in return 
to act as guardian to her stepson, with whom he was to 
share her wealth. When the youth came to England after- 
wards, plunging into a wild course of dissipation, Comber- 
mere did his utmost to redeem a pledge which cost him 
infinite trouble and anxiety. 

The Begum professed Christianity, was munificent in 
her donations to many creeds, and died at a good old age 
in the odour of respectability and sanctity. Bishop Heber, 
who visited her in 1825, some years before Captain Mundy 
reported on her, had described her as a very queer-looking 
old woman, with brilliant but wicked eyes ; and ten years 
afterwards she had a more flattering testimonial from 
Lord William Bentinck — addressing her as " my esteemed 
friend " — to " the benevolence of disposition and extensive 
charity which have endeared you to thousands, and excited 
in my mind sentiments of the warmest admiration." 

The biography of the Begum has brought us somewhat 
in advance of Thomas' story. But it illustrates the almost 
unaccountable ascendant these unlettered soldiers of fortune 
asserted among races of hereditary warriors at least as 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 261 

reckless of life as themselves. Sailors from the forecastle, 
such as Thomas and Sombre, who had come out in ragged 
dungaree, grumbling at the salt junk and weevily biscuit, 
played a leading part in native courts accustomed to 
barbaric pomp and stately ceremonial, among Brahmins 
who abjured the sacred ox, and Mohammedans who had 
forsworn swine and strong liquors. They easily assimilated 
the colours of their surroundings, and with the common 
vices of lust and greed were permitted to indulge in their 
personal predilections. Had Thomas turned Moslem and 
total abstainer his fate would have been different ; it was 
his misfortune that drunkenness brought him to grief. In 
some respects Sombre's case is the more remarkable, for he 
was a coward at heart, and never risked himself in action. 
Thomas, on the contrary, was always to the front of the 
fighting ; he had the genius of astute strategy and sur- 
prise, was free-handed in the disposal of his ill-gotten 
spoils, and not without a ghtter of noble qualities which 
his reckless followers could appreciate. It might be said 
of him — 

" They followed him, for he was brave, 
And great the spoil he got and gave. 
But still his Christian origin 
With them was little less than sin. 
Since he, their mightiest chief, had been 
In youth a bitter Nazarene." 

Not that Thomas had been a Nazarene or anything 
at all, but he came of infidel kin and from a Christian 
country. 

In 1793 he had found the jealousy of Le Vaisseau and 



262 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the French officers of the Begum too strong for him. He 
feared a conspiracy, and had taken to flight with a few 
hundred rupees in his saddle-bags. He had quickly 
gathered a following of some scores of desperadoes, laid a 
wealthy village under contribution, and with the proceeds 
increased companies into battalions, which he as rapidly 
brought into some sort of discipHne. At that time every 
Mahratta chieftain had a gang of robbers in his pay who 
added materially to his revenues. He kept the conduct 
of the more important expeditions to himself, but detached 
his freebooters on minor expeditions, on which he levied 
a handsome commission. One of the most powerful and 
turbulent of Scindiah's feudatories was Appi Rao Khandi, 
and with him Thomas soon came to an understanding. 
When Appi backed his bills or his promises, Thomas raised 
fresh levies. A large district was assigned him on Appi's 
borders, where the inhabitants, although raided at intervals, 
had refused to resign their independence. Thomas was 
an excellent man of business ; he gladly undertook the 
congenial work, but stipulated for a half-yearly settlement 
of accounts. It was no light task, for his men, hke those 
of his employer, were always verging on mutiny ; their 
pay was always in arrear, and the irregular settlements 
depended on pillage. The peasants were stubborn in 
resistance, and swarmed like hornets round Thomas' flying 
camps. By indomitable will and rapid movements he 
triumphed over all opposition, and his remittances to Appi 
were so satisfactory that his jaghires were largely extended. 
The acquisitions he had won had made trouble with 
Scindiah, and Appi's army was in revolt. He sought 
refuge with Thomas, who, showing a bold front, saved 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 263 

him from a threatened attack of the mutineers. In grati- 
tude he gave him the full freehold of other lands, yielding 
a revenue of a lakh and a half of rupees (;^i5,ooo), a sum 
equal to more than four times the money now. The value 
of the gift was enhanced by the cession of an almost im- 
pregnable fortress, to which Thomas held tenaciously till on 
the eve of his fall. Scindiah had had good reason to appre- 
ciate his feudatory's staunch friend, and made him many 
tempting offers. But Thomas, except when personally 
endangered, was a Dalgetty in fidelity to a military bargain. 
He stuck to Appi, who had on the whole treated him faith- 
fully and generously, but even with Appi he obstinately 
held his own. The war had gone on between Appi and 
his feudal superior. Thomas had taken a fortified town, 
surrendered by the martial Brahmin governor on condition 
of safety for his Hfe and property. Appi, who hoped to 
squeeze the wealthy Brahmin, demanded that he should 
be handed over to him, a demand which Thomas positively 
refused. Appi brooded over the injury, and, in Oriental 
fashion, planned an assassination which Thomas narrowly 
escaped. Then, as often, both before and afterwards, his 
courage and presence of mind served him well. 

But Appi had on the whole been a generous patron, 
and his death threw Thomas back on the world. He 
quarrelled with the chief's successor. He was dismissed 
from his posts as warden of Scindiah's northern marches ; 
he found himself his own master, with troops who were 
clamouring for arrears of pay. There was nothing for it 
but frankly to turn freebooter and support himself and 
his men by pillage ; he became a Pindaric to all intents, 
save that he was never wantonly cruel. He ranged the 



264 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

country far and wide, laying towns and villages under 
contribution. But with his relatively feeble forces that 
could not go on indefinitely ; he was encroaching on the 
rights of more legalised robbers, and it was clear he would 
sooner or later be suppressed as a nuisance. Then he 
decided to set up for himself as an independent prince. 
When we remember his scanty resources, the audacity of 
his schemes is amazing. Knowing the vicissitudes of 
Oriental politics, he had been long casting covetous eyes 
on the district of Harriana to the north-west of his borders. 
It was a debatable land of drought and desolation, owning 
no paramount ruler, but with a warlike population and 
many strong places. Moreover, Sikhs from the Punjaub 
had been establishing themselves within the northern 
boundaries. Nothing daunted by the difficulties, after 
desperate fighting he overran and occupied the country, 
driving out the Sikh colonists, although it brought him 
into collision with the Khalsa. Then the freebooter became 
the statesman and sage administrator, taking wise measures 
to secure his conquest. He rebuilt and strengthened the 
fortifications of Hansi, his principal town. He invited 
skilled artisans, who had liberal wages, and, like his old 
friend the Begum, established an arsenal, a cannon foundry, 
and a mint. The Sikhs he had disturbed were awkward 
neighbours, but he not only managed to keep them at bay 
but actually dreamed of extending his dominion to the 
Indus. To his following he was free-handed beyond his 
means, for he not only promised pensions to his veterans 
but made liberal compensation to the wounded. 

With these ambitious dreams of conquests in his mind 
he set to work on preparations which soon exhausted his 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 265 

exchequer. To pay his troops he must find them profitable 
occupation. He therefore decided to raid Jeypore, which, 
as he used gratefully to remark, had always afforded a 
supply to his necessities. Like Morayshire, between Low- 
lands and Highlands, it was a land where all men took their 
prey. Whatever may be said as to the morality of the 
proceeding, from the financial and mihtary standpoints it 
was a success ; his arms were everywhere victorious over 
overwhelming odds. Once with 2000 fagged and famishing 
men he held a hostile city against an army of 40,000 — 
though he ultimately was compelled to retire with his 
booty in a retreat through thirsty deserts that would have 
done credit to Eugene, Massena, or Marshal Soult. His 
personal magnetism must have been marvellous, and at 
the last, when deserted by all the rest, his bodyguard- still 
stood by him staunchly. 

Discomfited in a measure, but enriched and noways 
discouraged, he turned his arms against the Sikhs. Yet 
he was embarrassed besides by a complication of intrigues 
among neighbours ostentatiously professing friendships of 
which it is impossible to disentangle the threads. His 
invasion was the raid of the robber on a great scale, but 
never did his military talents shine with greater lustre. 
Considering the fighting qualities of the Sikhs, which we 
have learned to appreciate as their enemies and their over- 
lords, we are alike puzzled and astonished. The odds 
against him were often almost as great as those in his 
Jeypore campaign ; and his own handfuls of irregular 
horse were lost in the swarms of the Punjaub cavalry. 
More than once his audacity nearly brought him to disaster, 
but strangely enough, the enemy was panic-stricken and 



266 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

ready to accept peace upon any terms. For more urgent 
affairs had called him back, and he withdrew with en- 
hanced credit and glory, though with no territorial gains. 
With ambitions still fixed on the Indus, in the following 
year he again invaded the Sutlej States. Tempted by the 
wealth and fertility of the country, the task he undertook 
was that which taxed to the uttermost the whole of the 
British strength in two prolonged and doubtful campaigns. 
In daring so much he recognised its increasing difftculties, 
and opened communications with the British Government 
with the object of assuring the neutrality of Perron who 
then commanded Scindiah's forces. Perron's jealousy of 
Thomas was extreme, but the one power with which the 
Frenchman notoriously avoided coming in contact was that 
of the Company. Thomas said his intention was to take 
possession of the country and hand it over to the British 
Raj, placing himself and his army absolutely at their dis- 
posal. Lord Wellesley had his hands full elsewhere, and 
naturally mistrusting what seemed a mad adventure, 
declined the proposals, so Thomas had to content himself 
with another of his lucrative forays, from which he came 
off with flying colours. Again he dictated terms to the 
Sikhs, exacting a large indemnity. Had they known the 
heavy pressure on him they might have been less com- 
plaisant. His inveterate enemy Perron was threatening his 
own territories ; there was no room in Hindustan for both 
of these aspiring soldiers, and Perron had at his back all 
the strength of Scindiah. Thomas made one of his rapid 
marches back to Hansi, and began to prepare for an im- 
pending siege. Scarcely had he retired from the Punjaub 
before the Sikhs offered Perron effective assistance. Thomas 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 267 

would have found it hard to make head against that com- 
bination, but there came one of the strokes of good fortune 
which repeatedly saved him and others of the adventurers 
in emergency. The two great Mahratta chiefs had come 
to blows, and Holkar had routed Scindiah in a pitched 
battle. Scindiah sent Perron a peremptory summons of 
recall. That meant his abandoning his own lucrative 
satrapy in the north and leaving Thomas master of the 
situation. The weakening of Scindiah was no great blow 
to him, for it increased the master's dependence on his 
best general. But Perron's jealousy had been excited by 
the knowledge that Scindiah had made those repeated 
overtures to Thomas, which had hitherto been dechned. 
Now he dreamed of a triple stroke of policy — to embroil 
Thomas with the alliances he had been negotiating in the 
north, to break off negotiations he had been attempting 
with Holkar and to send him to the Deccan instead of 
himself. The scheme was absurd, for Thomas was not the 
man to be befooled ; nevertheless, realising that his situa- 
tion had become precarious, he was not indisposed to hear 
what Scindiah had to offer, and an interview with Perron 
committed him to nothing. They met in council, when 
the most friendly relations were estabhshed between the 
English officers in either camp. Scindiah's offers were 
satisfactory in the main, but there were two conditions 
which Thomas would not entertain. One was that, as 
Perron had suggested, he should send some of his battalions 
to fight Holkar, which meant loosing his hold on the 
territory he had appropriated ; the other, and perhaps the 
more objectionable, that he should be Perron's subordinate. 
On reflection he categorically refused, yet, as events proved. 



268 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

he would have been wise to accept. He reverted to the 
ordeal by battle, and there was a series of bloodily con- 
tested actions. After what had been nearly a drawn fight, 
he lost everything by failing to follow up a victory. The 
old foremast man celebrated it by getting hopelessly drunk, 
and was in a state of intoxication for a fortnight. Then 
Hearsey, of whom we have heard lately in a most interest- 
ing memoir of his family, comes in : the command devolved 
upon him, and he seems to have shown himself in the 
crisis supine and incompetent. The beaten enemy brought 
up supports, and drew lines of circumvallation round 
Thomas' camp. When he came to himself he did all man 
could do to retrieve the consequences of his drunken folly. 
But the fatalists who followed him beheved his star had 
been eclipsed, and began to falter in their allegiance. The 
enemy's emissaries were busy within his lines, bribing and 
intriguing. Food and water and ultimately ammunition 
failed. The daily desertions became more frequent, and 
at the last he was abandoned by his most trusted chiefs. 
Only his immediate guards remained faithful. When the 
case became desperate he determined to cut his way out. 
The Mahratta horse took the alarm ; there was a long and 
close pursuit, but he reached his capital in safety. There 
again he did all that man could do. He poisoned the 
wells for miles around, throwing in beef and pork so that 
neither Mohammedan nor Hindoo would drink the water. 
These formidable obstacles were surmounted ; the town 
was carried by storm ; the citadel was reduced to the last 
extremity. The celebrated Skinner was in the front of 
the attack, where Englishman was well matched against 
Englishman, and in the hand-to-hand fighting blood flowed 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 269 

like water. Capitulation became a matter of sheer neces- 
sity. Perron would have pressed his advantage merci- 
lessly, but Skinner and his English officers, admiring 
Thomas' indomitable pluck, generously interposed. Honour- 
able terms were granted, but there was an ignoble fall of 
the curtain on the tragedy. Thomas was entertained at 
a grand banquet, where the Frenchman received him with 
forced courtesy and his countrymen did all in their power 
to console him. Again the wine got the upper hand, and 
a spark set fire to the sulphurous atmosphere. A heated 
French officer proposed a toast which roused the half- 
drunken Celt to a frenzy. He unsheathed his sword, 
ranted and swaggered like a Bobadil or a Capitaine Fracasse, 
and although he was calmed for the time, the festival ended 
in an orgy. The sober Skinner took the precaution of 
ordering his sentries not to challenge Thomas on his exit. 
Unfortunately there was some misunderstanding, and one 
of the sentries did challenge and stop him. Thomas, 
no longer responsible for his actions, struck at the man 
and cut off his hand. When he came to his senses next 
morning he made ample apology, but the mischief to his 
own reputation had been done. 

He left Hansi for the British frontier with wife and 
children, under honourable escort, but only a lakh or two of 
rupees. At Benares he was received and welcomed by 
Lord Wellesley, to whom he gave much valuable informa- 
tion as to Central India and the North-West. He urged 
again the annexation of the Punjaub, arguing that the 
internal distractions would make it easy. The Governor- 
General lent a not unwilling ear, but at that time he had 
other and more serious pre-occupations. 



270 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Like the French adventurers, who had been more suc- 
cessful in amassing fortunes, Thomas longed for a return 
to his native land ; but though only in his forty-sixth year 
he died on the river voyage to Calcutta. The toils of 
incessant warfare and the anxieties of rough and ready 
statecraft had done their work, while his frequent bouts 
of intoxication had sapped a strong constitution. He died 
and was buried at the cantonment of Bahrampur. Though 
absolutely illiterate to the last, he is said to have become 
an accomplished linguist, and could address himself to his 
recruits in their various dialects. He could not have 
achieved so much had he not won the devotion of his 
immediate entourage, and he showed wonderful tact in the 
management of men who were for the most part in arrears 
of pay and as often on the verge of rebellion. That he 
was not without some dash of chivalry was proved when 
he rode in hot haste to the rescue of the Begum. 

Skinner's career was sensational as that of Thomas. 
He was one of the early English adventurers who, like 
the Hearseys and the Palmers of Hyderabad, whether 
soldiers or merchants, by birth, virtual naturalisation or 
intermarriage, became semi-Indian. Like the Hearseys, he 
passed into the British service when the Mahratta power 
was broken, but unlike Thomas he died honoured, hospi- 
table, and prosperous, in a good old age. In person and 
bearing the two men were very different. The Irish sailor 
was singularly handsome, tall, and athletic ; with his 
muscular figure he seemed a match for any Pathan or 
Rajpoot swordsman. Skinner was a cheery-looking little 
fellow, wiry and active, but below the middle height. No 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 271 

one would have set him down at sight for the most daring 
leader of light cavalry in Hindustan. Appearances were 
deceptive, and his troopers knew better. Assiduous practice 
had made him a master of his weapons ; his swordsman- 
ship resembled sleight of hand, and his skill with the lance 
was unsurpassed even by those who had handled it from 
childhood. When the light of battle flashed into his face, 
that jolly, good-humoured countenance was transformed. 
He had his wild followers thoroughly in hand, but they 
loved him for he invariably shared their hardships and 
looked carefully after their comforts. 

His dark complexion stamped his origin ; he was a 
half-breed and illegitimate. In the memoir he left he tells 
much of his own story. His father was a Scotchman in 
the Company's service, who, like most of his brother officers, 
had formed an illicit connection with a Rajpoot girl who 
had been captured in a raid at the age of fourteen. By her 
the young Scot had six children — three daughters and as 
many sons. The daughters were married well to men in 
the Company's service ; of the sons the eldest went to sea ; 
James and his younger brother took to soldiering. From 
boyhood Skinner led a hard life, and he had varied and 
trying experiences before he found his vocation. The 
beginnings of his education were in a charity school, for 
his father had nothing beyond his pay. Then he was 
bound apprentice to a printer, and on the first night he 
was kept at work in the office till two in the morning. 
Two nights more of the drudgery were enough for him ; 
he escaped by the window, and set out to seek his fortunes 
with eightpence in his pocket. For a time he earned a 
precarious livelihood by carrying loads in the bazaars for 



272 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

fourpence a day. Then he was recognised and reclaimed 
by a servant of a brother-in-law who gave him his keep 
in return for copying papers. That work was as distasteful 
as the printing business, when his godfather, Colonel Burn, 
came to the rescue. He proved more of a father than his 
natural parent. He was told that the boy was an idle 
scamp, so he called him up and solemnly reprimanded him. 
But the bark was worse than the bite, and he asked what 
line of life he wanted to follow. " Soldier or sailor," was 
the ready reply, and the Colonel gave him 300 rupees and 
forwarded him to his father at Cawnpore, whither he was 
soon to follow himself, when he would find him employ- 
ment. The Colonel was as good as his word, and gave him 
a letter to De Boigne, then at the head of the Mahratta 
army. He was gazetted an ensign, and appointed to a 
regiment commanded by Colonel Sutherland, another Scot 
with whom he had many relations in the future. When 
De Boigne resigned to leave for France, Sutherland 
succeeded him in command of the regulars in Hindustan — 
that term was then confined to three central provinces — 
the southern brigades being then under his rival, the 
Frenchman Perron. 

Sutherland was ordered into Bundelcund. Besides his 
regulars there were 20,000 horse with him under Lukwa 
Dada, one of the most daring of the Mahratta leaders, with 
a train of field artillery. They were charged with reducing 
" refractory Rajahs " ; in other words, with annexing 
territory to which Scindiah had no sort of claim. The 
wild campaigning was an excellent school for the zealous 
ensign of eighteen. When not in the field he gave all his 
time to archery, spear practice, and the sword exercise. 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 273 

Half a native by birth, from the first he laid himself out 
to make fast friendships with the native chiefs. Then 
there came a turn in the intrigues for ascendency at court, 
and Sutherland was superseded by Perron. For the 
masterful Madhajee Scindiah had died, and been succeeded 
by his nephew, Dowlat Rao. 

Necessarily there were palace intrigues, a disputed 
succession, and revolts. It is needless to go into the 
intricate complications. There was war between Dowlat 
Rao and the Peishwah, who was leagued with Holkar and 
the Nizam. Many of Scindiah's subjects rebelled; for some 
reason, when his services were most indispensable there 
was a quarrel with Lukwa Dada, and dismissed from 
office, he headed the insurgents. The outlook for Scindiah 
was dark, but it gave young Skinner the first opportunity 
for distinguishing himself. In an engagement against for- 
midable odds, two of the regular battalions, both com- 
manded by Englishmen, bore the brunt of the battle. They 
had lost a third of their numbers before they began to 
cover the retreat, which could scarcely have been effected 
had not the escape been by a narrow gorge. Skinner with 
a couple of companies was left to hold the pass. When 
he heard the enemy's drums the main body had cleared 
the gorge, and he began to fall back. Then his only gun 
broke down, when the question was whether to abandon 
it or " to die defending it like good soldiers." He had 
fired his soldiers with his own spirit, and the shout was to 
stand by the gun. The pursuit came up in force, to be 
greeted with a storm of grape and a volley of small arms. 
A charge followed ; three stand of colours were taken, 
and the enemy driven back in great confusion. The gun 



274 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

was saved, the retreat was made good, and next day Skinner 
received a dress of honour, with honourable mention in 
despatches. What was more to the purpose, he had his 
promotion, with an increase of pay. 

That intestine Mahratta war was no child's play, and 
Skinner has many sensational and characteristic episodes 
to narrate. Scindiah's forces were blockading Chittur 
Ghur, defended by the gallant Lukwa Dada. It was the 
hill fortress of Oodeypore, and deemed impregnable. The 
siege was slow, and they were joined by Thomas with the 
six battalions he had hired to Scindiah, Supplies ran 
short and forage was almost exhausted. Skinner had had 
no pay for six months, and that of the Mahratta irregulars 
was some years in arrear. Plundering became general ; 
raiding parties ravaged all the country, every village within 
a radius of fifty miles being burned, the Rajpoot warriors 
and the ryots alike taking shelter in their large hill-forts. 
It was then vSkinner had an adventure which illustrates 
alike the faithlessness of the Orientals and the unscrupulous 
greed of the English soldiers of fortune who engaged with 
them. One of Scindiah's bravest captains was a certain 
Hurjee, but unhappily for him he was hated alike by his 
own leader and by the enemy's general. They arranged 
together that he was to be entrapped and murdered. One 
morning, when Skinner was exercising his horse, he met 
Hurjee at the head of a squadron, and asked where he was 
going. Hurjee said he had been ordered out in search of 
a ford, and asked Skinner to accompany him. They rode 
straight into the snare, but cut their way out after some 
desperate fighting, in which Skinner manfully played his 
part. Next day the grateful Hurjee said that his valiant 
sowars had only done their duty, but the Englishman had 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 275 

fought for him as a friend. And he presented him, to his 
great gratification, with bracelets set with diamonds, a 
sword, a shield, and a valuable horse. Then the rapacious 
Sutherland came on the scene. He reprimanded Skinner 
severely for riding out without orders, adding that he 
should report him. But he let him understand that, if he 
handed over the horse, the escapade might be overlooked. 
Sutherland gained nothing by the attempt at blackmailing. 
Skinner did not give up his horse, and Hurjee praised him 
so highly to Perron that the general sent him a flattering 
letter of thanks. 

Those Rajpoot fortresses, often of vast extent, were 
naturally immensely strong, and labour had been ex- 
hausted in artificially strengthening them. One of the 
most thrilling incidents in our Indian warfare is the gallant 
attempt on Gwalior when held by the Mahrattas, which 
only missed success by circumstances which could not have 
been foreseen. Skinner gives a vividly picturesque account 
of the storm of Shahjeghur, heroically defended by its 
Rajpoot garrison and assailed with equal determination by 
the Mahrattas. As in the Gwalior affair, when the stormers 
reached the walls the breaches were found impracticable. 
Nevertheless, they persevered. The defenders hailed down 
great stones upon them, and showered powder-pots plugged 
with grass and thatch — an Indian modification of the 
Greek fire. After two hours of fruitless effort the assailants 
withdrew. Some days afterwards, to their own misfortune, 
the garrison roused them with a sally to beat up their 
trenches. The Rajpoots were repulsed ; the Mahrattas 
followed them up, and thronged through one of the gates 
along with them. From all sides storming parties swarmed 
up like hornets ; the place was carried and the bulk of 



276 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the garrison cut to pieces. But a thousand of them had 
retreated to a keep. The Mahrattas sometimes showed 
generous chivalry in victory. Their leader, when he saw 
the carnage, said the survivors were noble fellows who 
must be saved, and sent a white flag offering them capitula- 
tion on their own terms. They said they would yield if 
permitted to march out with their arms, otherwise they 
would blow up the keep and die with their wives and 
children. They got the terms they asked, and were sent 
away under escort. 

Indeed the exterminating determination with which 
those wars were waged makes it the more surprising that 
the foreigners, however daring, should invariably have 
been found to the front, and that they should have sur- 
vived shot and sabre to reap the fruits of their reckless- 
ness. Here is another example of the stubborn heroism 
of the well-matched combatants. They had come face to 
face to fight a pitched battle. One of Scindiah's brigades 
of 8000 under a Frenchman, Dudernaig, was charged by 
10,000 of the enemy's horse. 10,000 Rhattores " were 
seen approaching from a distance ; the tramp of their 
immense and compact body rising like thunder above the 
roar of the battle." A slow hand-gallop quickened to 
racing speed ; the cannon of the brigade riddled their 
masses, " cutting down hundreds at each discharge," still 
the pace was never slackened ; " on they came like a whirl- 
wind," trampling over the fallen ; nothing could either 
check or shake them : " they poured like a torrent over 
the brigade and rode it fairly down, leaving scarce a 
vestige remaining." Of the 8000 only 200 escaped, and 
Dudernaig saved himself by a miracle by throwing himself 
down among the dead. 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 277 

Such a murderous charge should have decided the 
battle, but notwithstanding the victory remained with the 
Mahrattas. Skinner, although slightly wounded, made a 
good thing of it. The victors burst into the hostile camp, 
and scattered to pillage. He had the good luck to find his 
way to the Rajah's bungalow, magnificently decorated 
with embroidery and brocades. " I saw nothing but gold 
and silver." Opening a basket he found some jewellery 
and two golden idols with diamond eyes — the idols he 
immediately secreted in his bosom. In the circumstances 
a summons to his commander's presence was awkward, 
for an uneasy conscience made him suspect that the chief 
had information of his prizes. But on the contrary all 
passed pleasantly ; he was praised for his good service in 
the day's work, and among other things presented with 
another robe of honour, a palanquin, and an allowance of 
forty rupees a month to pay the bearers. 

The formidable insurrection had been put down, and 
Scindiah, who had been thoroughly frightened, showed his 
tender mercies to the captured leaders by various in- 
genious methods for their happy despatch. Four were 
blown from guns in the ordinary way, another was blown 
up by rockets, some were simply poisoned, and others had 
their heads crushed in with tent mallets — a disagreeable 
reminder to the Europeans that they held their lives on 
precarious tenure, for as they were perpetually changing 
sides, they were liable to be sentenced as traitors. 

So the Mahratta wars alwaj^'s went on. Scindiah gave 
his men incessant occupation. Alternately aggressive or 
standing on the defensive, he was eternally annexing ter- 
ritory, repelling attacks, or quelling disturbances. His 
hordes of horsemen lived in the saddle like the Pindarics, 



278 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

and if they were very irregularly paid had ample oppor- 
tunities of looting. Skinner did well for himself on the 
whole, but could not always expect to come off scatheless. 
Once, to use a vulgar phrase, he had an exceedingly near 
squeak for it. They were then fighting the Rajpoot Rajah 
of Ooncara, Their infantry had deserted en masse, and 
when the Rajah pressed his advantage, Skinner was falling 
back with some guns at the head of a thousand horse. 
Retreating towards ravines which promised a refuge, he 
was charged by the Rajah in person and surrounded. He 
made his men a brief, soldier-like speech, told them that 
death must come sooner or later, that come it must, and 
that it became them to meet it now and die like soldiers. 
They charged in turn and took the enemy's cannon. They 
formed squares, but were beset on all sides and broken. 
Then his troopers lost their coolness, his own guns were 
lost as well, he found himself left with only ten followers, 
and one of the enemy's troopers galloping up, fired his 
matchlock at close quarters. He dropped for dead at 
three in the afternoon, and did not regain consciousness 
till sunrise. He had been stripped to his trousers, and 
dragged himself under a bush for shelter from the blazing 
sun. Two men of his battalion, severely wounded like 
himself, had crawled to his side. They lay there through 
the day, dying of thirst, till the second night came on. 
It was so dreadful, he says, that he swore if he survived 
to have nothing more to do with soldiering. All around 
were the wounded crying for water, and the jackals who 
were feasting on wounded and dead could only be kept off 
by throwing stones at them. But in the morning two 
benevolent Samaritans came, a man and a woman who 
brought bread and water. Skinner drank eagerly, thanking 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 279 

the woman and Heaven, But there was an extraordinary 
example of the strength of caste. One of his companions, 
a Subahdar, was a high-caste Rajpoot ; the good folk who 
came to their assistance were Chunars of the lowest class, 
and he would neither have bread nor water at their hands. 
If he died, he preferred to die unpolluted. 

That day the Rajah sent coohes to bury the dead and 
bring away the wounded. Skinner was carried into camp ; 
the ball was extracted, and with his intense vitality, he was 
on his legs again almost immediately, to receive gifts and 
the highest commendation from the chivalrous Rajah, Nor 
did his generosity end there. He sent the prisoner to his 
capital, lodged him well, treated him handsomely, and 
finally dismissed him free at the end of a month, with a 
horse, a sword, and a shield. 

Perron was then at the height of his prosperity, and 
Scindiah had every reason to be grateful to him. Had 
not Perron's authority made him formidable to his master, 
and had the Frenchman continued to serve the Mahratta 
loyally, the course of events might have been different. 
But Perron was intoxicated with unbroken successes ; his 
head was turned and his character changed. Skinner says 
he had once been a good, honest soldier : now he had turned 
despot, lending a ready ear to flatterers. Formerly he 
had been free-handed like De Boigne, but now he became 
avaricious. All the best appointments were given to his 
countrymen ; the Mahratta chiefs and the English officers 
were ahke disgusted. The dissensions and intrigues 
weakened Scindiah, and encouraged his enemies. Holkar 
of Indore, always jealous, seized the opportunity. He 
gathered Pindarics around him, leagued himself with the 
Pathan, Ameer Khan, and candidly told his troops they 



2 8o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

could have no pay, but promised an abundance of plunder. 
He kept his word, and those ferocious hordes of horse 
were backed by disciplined battalions, officered for the most 
part by Englishmen. Meantime there was almost an open 
rupture between Scindiah and Perron. Skinner assisted 
at a memorable Durbar, to which Perron had been invited in 
courteous terms. It was nothing less than a snare arranged 
by the Rajah for the assassination of the inconvenient 
general. But Perron, well versed in Oriental methods, had 
wind of the court conspiracy. He came to the Durbar 
attended by 300 of his own officers, foreign and native, 
aU armed to the teeth. Scindiah was surrounded by a 
Pathan guard, assembled as Perron's executioners. He 
showed his disappointment when he saw his prey escape 
him. There was whispering with his counsellors, and the 
Pathans were ordered to withdraw. Then the Rajah had 
recourse to flattery, but Perron knew him, and was not to 
be hoodwinked. He laid his sword at the Maharajah's 
feet, told him he could not brook such insults, and 
must retire. A peace was patched up, with interchange 
of compliments. Perron carried off the honours and 
rode back in triumph to his camp, but with the injury 
rankling. 

So it came about that while Holkar with his ruthless 
bands was making a hell of Southern Hindustan, Perron, 
indifferent to his master's orders, held aloof, looking after 
his own affairs in the north. The state of the country, and 
the appeal of the Peishwah, alarmed at the growing power 
of Holkar, induced the English to interfere, and the treaty 
of Bassein was followed by the Mahratta wars. The 
declaration of hostilities was a turning-point in Skinner's 
career. As much Indian as English, and a veritable soldier 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 281 

of fortune, he had no wish to leave the Mahratta service, 
but he was compelled to go. Other Englishmen in Scin- 
diah's pay had refused to fight their countrymen and had 
resigned their commissions, whereupon the whole of those 
serving with Perron were summarily dismissed. Probably 
Perron was glad of the opportunity, for Skinner and his 
comrades were sent off in high-handed fashion, and warned 
that they were not to be found near the General's camp 
after a certain day. They went to Agra, but regretted pay 
and prospects, and had still a hope that their dismissal 
might be reconsidered. On the day of the notable battle 
of Aligarh when Perron met Lord Lake, their tents were 
pitched in a garden near the battlefield. Skinner rode out 
to witness the flight of the Mahratta horse, with Perron, 
hatless, bringing up the rear. He actually accosted the 
fugitive, saying he was there to share his fortunes. Perron 
said that all was over, that his men had behaved like 
cowards, and bid him make his peace with the British. 
Skinner urged him to rally his forces and make a stand, 
but Perron was in despair, and not to be persuaded. After 
some further attempts, Skinner cursed him for a traitor, 
and took his leave, telling him to go to the devil. 

Though he had broken with Perron and parted from 
him in disgust, nevertheless he had no wish to leave 
Scindiah's service. His brother officers were of a different 
mind. They represented that the Mahratta chief would 
never trust them again — that they had best make their 
peace with the Enghsh, who would welcome them gladly. 
The wiser counsel prevailed, and they rode in a body to 
the British outposts. Their first reception was rough 
enough, and Skinner's future was trembling in the balance, 
when a letter was handed to him from an officer, an old 



2 82 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

friend of his father's, couched in cordial terms, which in- 
duced him to delay his departure. With his comrades he 
proceeded to headquarters, and they were at once intro- 
duced to the Commander-in-Chief. Lord Lake, who was 
only too pleased to encourage desertions from the Mahrattas, 
received them with the greatest kindness ; half-famished, 
they were invited to dinner in the mess-room, and before 
the evening closed all doubts as to their welcome were 
dissipated. His lordship knew Skinner well by report, and 
asked him if he would take service and raise a regiment 
of horse. Those first overtures Skinner unhesitatingly 
declined ; he said he was still Scindiah's soldier, and would 
never draw sword against him. Nor would he consent to 
write to the other officers still with the Maharajah, to 
assure them that if they came over they should hear 
favourable terms. But after all, he was a soldier of fortune 
and bethought himself ; he realised that, with Perron for 
an enemy, his position with Scindiah was shaken, and he 
yielded to the blandishments of the Englishmen. He agreed 
to send the letters, and they safely reached their destina- 
tion for his name and reputation franked them, while the 
messengers who carried others written by his comrades 
were waylaid and murdered. Doubtless that incident 
weighed with Lake, and when eight rissalahs of Perron's 
horse passed over to the camp at Delhi, he renev^ed his 
proposals. This time Skinner accepted. He could not 
resist the temptation of again leading his old followers 
into action when they greeted him with joyous acclaim. 
Thenceforward they became known as the famous " Yellow 
Boys," so called from their picturesque and rather grotesque 
uniforms, and noted under their daring leader for many a 
dashing deed of arms. Still, with a Dugald Dalgetty sense 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 283 

of honour, he stipulated that they should never fight 
against their former master. 

But the British were now in the field against Holkar, 
and with regard to him, as Scindiah's jealous rival, Skinner 
had no scruples. His horse were with the supports upon 
which Colonel Monson fell back after his disastrous advance 
and discreditable retreat. The British fled to the shelter 
of Agra, abandoning guns, camp equipage, and wounded, 
making the fatal and foolish mistake of flying before 
Orientals. For Holkar, on his side, though of high-strung 
courage, always nervous and scared by his own unexpected 
success, was withdrawing in the opposite direction. At 
Agra the very dregs of the populace were deriding the 
Feringhees and pelting stragghng sepoys with stones, till 
Lord Lake came up in force, bringing victory with him, 
to retrieve the situation. Yet Holkar, a man of moods, 
had taken heart again, and with his raw levies of wild 
horse, to be numbered by the ten thousand, was pressing 
on the British entrenchments. Their foraging parties were 
being cut up ; they were being brought from short rations 
to within a hair's-breadth of famine. Naturally Skinner's 
irregulars were regularly engaged in the foraging, and as 
they were well used to raiding hostile country they gene- 
rally came off scatheless. As the old marauder puts it 
bluntly, " I used to go out in the morning, plunder the 
villages, and send in whatever I could lay hold of." Conse- 
quently Lake, who was nursing his scanty forces, thought 
him the very man to send out on a dangerous, but neces- 
sary piece of work. A body of brinjarrahs (carriers) were 
bringing up their bullock-train with suppHes of grain from 
Cawnpore. They had been stopped en route by a Rajah 
who was wavering in his allegiance, and who had bribed 



2 84 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the reluctant carriers, honest enough in an ordinary way 
hke all their class, to hand over the grain. Lord Lake 
sent for Skinner, and asked whether he thought he could 
save the stores. Skinner, who seems to have been far from 
hopeful, said he would either save them or lose his life, 
whereupon his lordship shook his hand and said he would 
never forget the service. Subsequently the promise was 
redeemed. 

Skinner sounded to boot and saddle, and started with 
1200 troopers. Halting within a short ride of his destina- 
tion, he sent forward spies, who reported that the carriers 
were just beginning to unload into the fortress. Not a 
moment was to be lost. Leaving two-thirds of his men with 
his brother, with the rest he dashed into the midst of the 
hrinjarrahs, shouting out that Lord Lake had sent him to 
their help. They hesitated and began throwing down their 
loads, but he ordered them to stop that, under pain of 
death, and several were summarily shot -pour encourager les 
autres. It was a night attack, and ere sunrise all were 
well clear of the town. But the carriers had had reason 
for their hesitation, and the Rajah was soon in hot pursuit. 
By the time he was overtaken Skinner had rejoined his 
main body, and now he sent his brother on, with half his 
men, in charge of the convoy, while with the other half 
he showed front to the pursuit. The Rajah came up in 
far superior force, but after vapouring and threats, with 
some emptied saddles, he held a parley and listened to 
reason. The grain was gone, the camp would be fed, and 
he was in an awkward fix with the British army between 
him and the Mahrattas. It ended with his entreating 
Skinner to make his peace with the British general. Had 
Skinner been less prompt, he would have interposed too 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 285 

late. Lord Lake realised it, and was profuse in thanks, 
renewing his promises of never forgetting. Tliat was the 
first of many exploits by which he won the favour of his 
new employers. The welcome supplies enabled Lake to 
turn the tables, and Holkar was retreating. There was 
much skirmishing and fighting, and Skinner was always 
hard on the heels of the retiring foe, taking many prisoners. 
Some he released, with sarcastic messages to Holkar. For 
seven days, he says, they slept in the open and had no 
provision but what they found in the fields. Sometimes 
they had to change their ground twice or thrice in the 
night to avoid surprises. It was tr3nng work, but it had 
its compensations. " In this pursuit I acquired great 
plunder in horses and camels." He adds that, though 
results were satisfactory, " I felt the want of my dram ;" 
. for though he attained a good old age, it was not by 
practising the severe temperance prescribed for Europeans 
by the doctors. Lord Lake bestowed the highest com- 
mendation on him, presenting him with another horse with 
gorgeous trappings. Indeed he made himself useful in 
various ways, for the fame of his exploits reached his old 
comrades at Gwalior, and lured many deserters from 
Scindiah to take service under the British flag. 

There was no rest for the Yellow Boys, who were the 
scouts and eyes of Lord Lake's scattered battalions. The 
wild Pindarie leader Ameer Khan marched from Bhurtpore, 
traversed the Doab, and broke into Rohilcund, his native 
country, where he was far from welcome. Everywhere he 
spread devastation. He came with 30,000 horse, and when 
he left with only a third of the number, it was Skinner 
who played the leading part in his discomfiture. His 
atrocities far exceeded those of Holkar, but he had not the 



286 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

Mahratta's courage. When the concentrating forces of the 
British drove him to retreat, Skinner invariably led the 
chase, but the movements of the lightly equipped marauders 
tasked his energies to the utmost. They came, as has been 
said before, with only horses and arms, and though Skinner's 
squadrons were not much more heavily encumbered, it 
was wearisome work to follow. One of the first duties on 
which he was detached was the relief of Bareilly, for 
Ameer's sudden inroad had rushed the country, and the 
British resident with a handful of native guards was 
blockaded in Bareilly gaol. That episode reminds one of 
the days of the Mutiny and of Wake's brilliant defence of 
the billiard-room at Arrah. Skinner with looo troopers 
dashed ahead of the General in command of the main body, 
to find that the Pindarics had been scared by their advance 
after being gallantly kept at bay by the little garrison. 
They hurried forward in pursuit, but "Ameer Khan had 
led us such a dance, that for several days we were all in 
the dark as to where he had got," till Skinner caught some 
of his foragers and elicited the desired information. Then 
there is another incident which recalls Kavanagh's memor- 
able sortie, in Indian disguise, to carry news from beleaguered 
Lucknow to the troops advancing to its succour. The 
General was puzzled as to the movements of Ameer, and 
Skinner volunteered to go into his camp and find out 
what was going on. Skinner looked the Hindoo, and was 
fluent of native speech, nevertheless nothing could have 
been more venturesome, for he had to trust his life to 
the fidelity of troopers who could have earned a great 
reward by betraying him ; but, as the result proved, his 
confidence in their loyalty was not misplaced. Donning 
native dress, disguising ten picked servants, he went straight 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 287 

for the Pindaric camp, mingled with a foraging party, 
and rode in. He came back primed with the intelHgence 
he sought, having previously sent information by instal- 
ments by messengers. One important fact he learned— 
that the robbers were divided in racial factions ; he 
waited to see a free fight between Pathans and Mahrattas, 
and then he slipped away, again in company of their 
foragers. 

Then there was close pressure on the Pindarie flight, 
with incessant fighting and skirmishing. Skinner and his 
brother showed the way, in command of separate detach- 
ments. In hand-to-hand combat he and his brother had 
many hair-breadth escapes. In brief, soldierly language 
he relates a dramatic incident of deep personal interest. 
News was brought him that his brother was surrounded 
in a ruinous serai by the enemy in overwhelming strength. 
Again there was a striking illustration of the loyalty of 
the rissaldars to their English chiefs. Ameer summoned 
the dilapidated fort, inviting them to give up their leader 
and surrender an untenable post, promising to each man 
three days' pay as the purchase-money. The younger 
Skinner told them that, to save their 500 lives, he would 
gladly give himself up. The answer was, that when all 
had fallen he might go, but not so long as a man of them 
was alive. They knelt and prayed to God to give them 
courage. The storm burst from all sides : the stormers 
repeatedly topped the walls, only to be cut down or hurled 
back, and were finally driven off with great slaughter. 
When night had fallen, a spy who was with the detach- 
ment stole out to carry news of their desperate straits, 
having cut up his horse's shoes into slugs, for ammunition 
was almost exhausted. 



2 88 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

The elder Skinner was in sore distress. The General 
S5mipathised, but declined to move ; he said plausibly, 
that there must have been another assault, and that one 
way or another the affair must have been decided. The 
resourceful Skinner, thrown back upon himself, took prompt 
action as a veritable free lance. He wrote a letter, 
addressed to his brother, but really intended for Ameer 
Khan. A man brought up in his family undertook its 
delivery to the true destination, and ten of his most trusted 
sowars volunteered to engage in the plot. It was efficiently 
carried out with Hindoo craft. The chief messenger, having 
assured himself that the garrison still held out, let himself 
fall into the hands of the enemy's pickets. The letter was 
duly read by Ameer ; it told young Skinner to drag out 
negotiations for surrender, as the General was advancing 
by forced marches to his relief. Meanwhile the ten sowars 
had fired some corn-stacks and given chase to some 
straggling camp-followers. The cry was raised that the 
English were coming, and with the panic that so quickly 
spreads in Oriental armies. Ameer and his host took to 
precipitate flight. A thousand of his men had fallen in 
the attack, and the loss of the defenders was comparatively 
trifling. 

The pursuit by the Yellow Boys was resumed, and the 
check proved fatal. Ameer lost credit and character ; 
his soldiers deserted by hundreds, he found resistance at 
every walled village, and hurrying to escape out of Rohil- 
cund, crossed the frontier river with 10,000 disheartened 
men. The flying Pindarics were in evil case, but Skinner 
and the Yellow Boys were scarcely beaten off. He says 
they had hunted Holkar for 500 miles and Ameer Khan 
afterwards for half as many again ; they had been far in 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 289 

advance of the main body, and he adds the almost in- 
credible statement that, " to the best of my belief," they 
were never less than eighteen hours a day on horseback. 
All the same, and immediately afterwards, he expresses 
his gratitude to the General for always sending for him 
when there was anything to be done. There was no diffi- 
culty in gratifying his tastes, and soon after he had the 
opportunity of a specially sensational exploit before a 
cloud of witnesses. The restless Holkar, with the defeated 
Ameer in company, making a wide circuit, had crossed into 
the Punjaub, hoping to rouse the Sikhs and be supported 
by Runjeet Singh. Thither the British forces, led by 
Lord Lake in person, had followed him. The armies were 
separated by the broad stream of the Sutlej, and the cam- 
paign had come to a sort of stalemate. Finally, as Holkar 
sat fast. Lake decided to attempt the passage, but the 
difficulty was to find a ford. There was a place immediately 
in front of him which, though dangerous, was deemed 
practicable — so dangerous was it, that he hesitated to 
give orders to sound it, but one evening he remarked 
at dinner, apparently casually, that he wished some one 
would try the depth, with a troop and a galloping gun. 
The chief of the staff whispered to Skinner that the hint 
was meant for him, whereupon he rose incontinently and 
said, " If your lordship will give me leave I will try the 
ford to-morrow morning." Next day, with two squadrons 
and a galloper. Skinner was down at the ghaut, and his 
lordship, with his staff and a strong muster of officers, were 
all there to look on. One of the political agents remonstrated 
as to the peril, but his lordship's mind was then made up, 
and he said curtly that he accepted the responsibility. 

" Our horses had to swim for twenty yards, after which 



T 



290 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

they got footing. There was an island in the middle of 
the river, to which I bent my course. On reaching this we 
found it a quicksand, on which my galloper stuck fast. 
I dismounted and directed my brother with two rissalahs 
to cross, and then, dismounting one of them, to bring the 
men back to reheve the gun, which had now sunk up to 
the wheels. The rissalah returned, took out the horses, 
and dragged the gun across ; and just as we landed I took 
off my hat and giving three hurrahs in which Lord Lake 
and all the staff joined, proclaimed that the first British 
gun had crossed the Sutlej." 

Like Hawkwood, the Anglo-Italian Condottiere, Skinner 
avowed his occupation was war, and these stirring times 
to his disgust were succeeded by a period of piping peace. 
Lord Cornwallis had replaced Lord Wellesley. Lord Lake 
had to tell Skinner, " with tears," that his Yellow Horse 
were to be disbanded, and asked him how he was to be 
repaid for his invaluable exertions. Skinner answered 
that he would be satisfied with a small jaghire, as he in- 
tended to retire from soldiering. Asked whether 20,000 
rupees of rent would content him and his brother, he replied 
that it would be making princes of them. Disappointed 
of that by the interposition of the Resident at Delhi, who 
asserted that no British subject could become an Indian 
landowner, he was indemnified by a pension. He had 
spoken of renouncing soldiering, but he could never be 
happy in retreat. His staunch patron Lord Lake had 
promised to befriend him, but Lake had died. Helped by 
other and influential friends, he had been permitted to 
retain command of 300 of his old troopers as the civil guard 
of the Delhi Resident. They were the nucleus of a force 
that any call from him could expand, and he was soon to 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 291 

have the opportunity. Central India could never be long 
at rest, nor could the Company ever repose on its conquests. 
A Rajah to whom a tributary territory had been assigned 
had been unable to manage his turbulent subjects, and a 
British force was to be marched into the country. Skinner, 
with his regiment increased to 800 men, was attached to a 
work which went on for several years, but for once he had 
few opportunities of distinguishing himself. 

Such desultory little wars were but the prelude to 
serious trouble. With Lord Moira's advent as Governor- 
General circumstances compelled a change to a more war- 
like policy. First we came to blows with the Ghoorkas, 
who have since given us some of our best native regiments. 
Skinner for a time had been residing at Delhi, where an 
admiring Resident had reversed his predecessor's decision 
as to jaghires, and commuted his pension for a grant which 
made him a landowner, and had material consequences 
for his future career. Now, with the first mutterings of 
the war storms, his regiments were raised to a strength of 
3000, and once more he was out on active service. In the 
northern hill country and the passes leading into Nepaul 
his mounted men were seldom called into action, but they 
were being disciplined for a service better suited to their 
habits and fighting qualities. As scouts and skirmishers 
they were again to be pitted against their old enemies, 
the flying Mahratta horsemen and the Pindarics. 

In 1814 the situation on our frontiers had become 
intolerable. It was estimated that there were 40,000 
Pindarics abroad, under chiefs who rivalled each other in 
ferocity, mainly taking their spoil in the rich valley of 
the Nerbudda. Some 30,000 men were either regularly in 
the pay of the Mahrattas, or with Ameer Khan in the 



292 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

north. At last they had broken bounds and invaded 
British territory. They knew that they had the Mahratta 
princes behind them, who were leaguing themselves for a 
last supreme effort to shatter the Company's power. Holkar 
and the Bonslah had openly taken the field : Scindiah 
was known to be in virtual alliance, though with his habitual 
craft he was slow to commit himself. In 1817 the British 
preparations were complete, and well-combined movements 
from north and south ringed in the marauding Pindarie 
hordes. Scattered in the field, as Sir John Malcolm says, 
they were hunted down like wild beasts in the jungle. 
Brigand soldiers of fortune, their hour had come. A 
dramatic Nemesis overtook Chetoo, the most noted of all 
the sanguinary leaders. Declining or distrusting the 
strangely lenient terms offered him, he took refuge in the 
jungles. He had well earned the sobriquet of " The Tiger," 
and a tiger killed him. His body was identified by the 
saddle, sword, valuables and papers which bestrewed the 
ground. Following up the tracks, the tiger was traced to 
his lair, and there the head of the famous freebooter was 
found intact. 

Skinner was with Ochterlony in the campaign which 
brought Ameer Khan to unconditional surrender. There 
was more treating than fighting, and Skinner had little to 
do. Sir John Malcolm, commanding his division, sent him 
a letter commending the steady conduct of his corps, and 
hoping they might long continue in the gallant performance 
of their duty. Malcolm's kindly hopes were only partially 
realised. Retrenchment was to be the order of the day, 
and the bulk of the corps was paid off. By way of com- 
pensation to the Colonel, his jaghires, which were lease- 
hold, were made freehold and hereditary. With the end 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 293 

of the " Pindaric War " his active service may be said to 
have come to a conclusion. The old soldier was rusting in 
repose, and in his memoirs he gives vent to disgust and 
disappointment. " Rapid indeed has been my fall." His 
expectations in the Mahratta service had been high, and 
no question had been raised as to his birth or colour. 
When he entered with the British, he hoped zeal and fidelity 
would have had their adequate reward. Regarded as a 
half-caste, colour and birth were against him. The old 
soldier was a grumbler, and in reality had little reason 
to complain. His services had generous recognition by 
his chiefs, from successive Governors-General downwards, 
and it is obvious, from the state he kept in his household, 
that he must have amassed a handsome fortune. Nor was 
he altogether without the military distractions in which he 
delighted. He was never without some command of horse ; 
and in 1825, when the Jhat states were giving trouble, he 
was commissioned to raise a second corps, when he had 
only to pick and choose among his old troopers. He was 
with Lord Combermere at the siege and capture of Bhurt- 
pore, though then his duties as a cavalry officer were chiefly 
confined to scouting and foraging. With his susceptibilities 
as a half-caste he was immensely pleased when his services 
were rewarded with the ribbon of the Bath. 

Back at Hansi, one of his regiments was disbanded. 
He went in the train of Lord William Bentinck, who treated 
him with the highest consideration, to the memorable meet- 
ing with Runjeet Singh, accompanying him afterwards on 
his progress through the Rajpoot states. These were his 
last marches. On his return he and the fighting " Yellow 
Boys " became the guardians of order as a semi-civilian 
police. At Hansi and his bungalow of Belaspore, as a 



294 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

wealthy zemindar and country gentleman, he lived beloved 
and respected by his neighbours, hospitable to all comers 
and generous to the poor. There he entertained Lord 
Combermere and his staff when on their progress in 1827. 
Captain Mundy, his lordship's aide-de-camp, describes it 
as a handsome and spacious house in a flourishing garden, 
where, " to such an extent does he carry his ideas of luxury, 
the comfortable old soldier has erected to himself an elegant 
and snug-looking mausoleum." They were with him again 
on the return march, when their reception was still more 
magnificent, with Oriental nautch dances and fireworks. 
The Commander-in-Chief reviewed Skinner's famous Horse. 
The costumes were striking, though serviceable. Tunics 
of red cloth, white cotton pantaloons, horse-furniture of 
red and yellow ; the weapons, the matchlock, spear, and 
sword. The most of their manoeuvres were those of 
European cavalry, but their speciality was the Mahratta 
charge. There was an advance in line, two deep ; the 
trot broke from a canter into a gallop, and on close approach 
the files opened out, and they came thundering on, with 
wild shrieks and swords flashing over their heads. At the 
word "Halt," each charger was brought on his haunches 
within ten yards of the reviewing General. Next they dis- 
played their skill with the matchlock and lance ; with the 
latter they showed amazing dexterity. Sometimes the 
play seemed likely to end in earnest, and then the veteran 
commander would take a spear from an attendant and 
join in the game. " I think I see him now, with his good- 
natured, twinkling eyes, and white teeth shining through 
his dark countenance. In his youth he had been a master 
of the weapon ; even in age, and with ' belly with good 
capon lined,' there were few in his regiment who could 



INDIAN ADVENTURERS 295 

match him." Like Tostig the Saxon, Murat, and many 
another dashing cavalry leader, he loved the pomp and 
pageantry of war, and his own uniform and that of his 
officers was resplendent. He does not repose in the 
mausoleum he had built. He was buried at Hansi with 
military honours, but afterwards the remains were trans- 
ferred to Delhi, where the second obsequies were attended 
by unprecedented crowds, and sixty-three minute guns 
were fired, for as many years of his life, as he was laid under 
the altar of the church he had built. A native Prince 
paraphrased in Oriental speech the scriptural lament that 
a great man had fallen in Israel. 

The Anglo-Indian soldiers who won the Hindu affec- 
tions had their native sobriquets. Skinner was known as 
Secunder Sahib ; Meadows Taylor long afterwards won wide 
popularity as Mahadeo Baba ; and Colonel Sutherland, who, 
in hot rivalry with Thomas, for a time had succeeded 
Perron as commander of Scindiah's army, was Sutlej Sahib. 
He ran a course almost identical with that of his competitors, 
with very similar vicissitudes. He had not Skinner's sense 
of honour, and an incident has been mentioned in which 
he figured very discreditably. Naturally his unscrupulous- 
ness was no bar to his advancement. He had begun badly. 
He was cashiered from our 73rd Regiment. He deserted 
to De Boigne, and was second in command when De Boigne 
retired. With Perron he was always at daggers drawn ; 
their rival ambitions made them bitter enemies. His grand 
exploit was his beating Holkar and Ameer Khan leagued 
together in the bloody battle of Indore. Finally, by the 
intrigues of Perron, who nevertheless was nearly connected 
with him by marriage, he was degraded from his high rank, 
when he left Scindiah in disgust and withdrew to Agra. On 



2 96 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 

the outbreak of the Mahratta war, that fortress capitulated 
to the British, and it was Sutherland who treated for the 
surrender. That may have been the reason for his being 
pensioned by the Company, dying in obscurity in somewhat 
straitened circumstances, for he does not appear to have 
made much of his great opportunities. 

When communications with the mother country were 
slow and comparatively rare, and adventurers were more 
familiar with the sword than the pen, many of their memo- 
rable exploits were never recorded. But much of public 
interest may still exist in neglected family papers. We have 
a striking example of that in the records of the Hearseys, 
recently edited by Colonel Pearse, and published by Messrs. 
Blackwood. For five generations they were famous in 
Oriental wars, fighting first for their own hands and after- 
wards for the British Raj. The last of note, and by far 
the most distinguished, was Sir John, the hero of many a 
battle and of many a hair-breadth escape, the veteran who 
quelled the Barrackpore revolt, the prelude to the Mutiny, 
when Mungal Pandy, whose name became the synonym for 
a mutineer, paid the penalty of his crimes on the gallows. 
But many another fighting family played a similar part in 
the thrilling history of our Indian conquests. 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, 47 

Abo, 195, 196 

Adda, the, 136 

Adige, the, 130 

Agra, 281, 283, 295 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 52, 244 

Alberoni, Cardinal, 167, 168, 171, 

173 , 
Albornoz, Cardinal, 10 
Alexander de Bourbon, i 
Alfonso of Aragon, 18 
Aligarh, 252, 281 
Alost, 137 
Alps, the, 2, 6, 132 
Alsace, 103, 137, 222, 227 
Al Sirat, bridge of, 83 
Amsterdam, 50 
Ancona, 29, 30. 
Andalusia, 174 

Anhalt-Dessau, Leopold of, 135 
Anne, Duchess of Brunswick, 190 
Anne, Duchess of Courland, 216, 

217, 218 
Anne, Empress of Russia, 179, 180, 

181, 182, 184, 190 
Antoing, 230, 233 
Antwerp, 238, 241 
Apennines, the, 9 
Aragon, 25 
Arcot, 249 
Ardenvohr, 65 
Arezzo, 14 
Argyle, Duke of, 33, 42, 46, 138, 

141, 155, 160, 161 
Arnheim, 78 
Assaye, 252, 259 
Ath, 236, 237 
Athens, Duke of, 3 
Atholl, Duke of, 159 
Attendolo, Muzio, 24 



Augsburg, 91 

Augustus, Elector of Saxony and 
King of Poland, 152, 209, 217, 220 
Austria, Upper, 133 
Auvergne, 1 1 
Avignon, 1 1 
Ayr, 43. 56 

Bacharach, 89 

Badajoz, 14, 72 

Baden, treaty of, 144 

Bagnacavallo, 14 

Bahrampur, 270 

Baillie, Major-General, 46 

Balkans, the, 103 

Balquhain, Count LesHe of, 96-104 

Bamberg, Bishop of, 82 

Banner, Field-Marshal, 37 

Banner, General, 73 

Barcelona, 168 

Bareges, Baths of, 189 

Bareilly, 286 

Baroda, Guikwar of, 246 

Barri Wood, 230, 231, 232 

Bastille, the, 107 

Bauditzen, Lieutenant-General, 82 

Bavaria, 90, 147, 224, 225 

Bavaria, Duke of. 118 

Bavaria, Leopold, Elector of, 97, 

109, no, 116, 117, 118, 122, 128, 

129. 133. 135. 142. 152, 219, 222. 

223, 228 
Bavaria, Max Emmanuel of, 117, 

132 
Bavaria, Maximilian of. 91, loi 
Belgrade, 103, in, 113, 117, 118, 

122, 123, 145, 147, 149 
Belleisle, 220, 224 
Benares, 269 
Benevente, 169 



298 



INDEX 



Bentinck, Lord William, 260, 293 

Berar, Rajah of, 246 

Berezofif, 178 

Bergen-op-Zoom, 131, 243, 244 

Bergstrasse, 87 

Bergtheim, 100 

Berlin, jy, 157, 189, 204 

Berwick, Duke of, 105, 137, 153, 

169, 220, 221 
Bestucheff, Vice-Chancellor, 197 
Bhurtpore, 72, 260, 285, 293 
Bianca Maria, Princess, 29, 30 
Bigorre, 170 
Bingen, 89 
Biron, Duke of Courland, 176, 180, 

187, 190, 215, 217, 218, 222, 223 
Blenheim, no, 134, 136, 139 
Bohemia, ■>,'], 100, loi, 102, 103, 

201, 202, 206, 223, 224, 225 
Bologna, Signoria of, 16 
Bordeaux, 169 
Borneholme, roads of, 62 
Bosnia, 128 
Bosphorus, the, 104 
Boufflers, 139, 140, 141, 142 
Bourbon, 97, 222 
Bourbon, Jacques de, 12 
Bourdonnais, 249 
Bouslah, the, 292 
Brandenburg Margrave, -jj, 78 
Brandenburg, New, 69, 75, -jt, 
Brandenburg, Old, Tj 
Breda, 52, 54, 239 
Breitenfeldt, 78, 82 
Brescia, 21, 28 
Brest, 226 

Bretigny, Peace of, 2 
Broglie, Marshal, 224, 225 
Broun, 201, 202 
Bruges, 52, 140, 237 
Brunswick, 91 

Brunswick, Duke Bevern of, 201 
Brunswick, Prince of, 188 
Brussels, 54, 137, 229, 237, 241 
Buda, 116 

Buddenbrog, 192, 193 
Budweis, 223 
Bundelcund, 272 
Burgundy, Duke of, 137 
Burn, Colonel, 272 
Burnet, 56 
Bussone, 17 



Butler, Walter, 74, 102 
Byng, Admiral Sir George, 167, 
174 

Cahors, 71 

Calabria, 25 

Calabria, Duke of, 3 

Calcutta, 270 

Callender, Earl of, 40 

Calverley, 1 1 

Cammock, Admiral, 173 

Campania, 15 

Caprara, 146 

Caravaggio, 30, 31 

Carignan, 106 

Carlowitz, 145, 146 

Carmagnola, 17-32 

Cassano, battle of, 136 

Castagnaro, battle of, \^ 

Cathcart, 161 

Catherine, Empress, 177, 217, 218 

Catinat, 119, 120, 121, 126, 129, 

130 
Cawnpore, 272, 283 
Cenis, 12 
Cesena, 14 
Chambery, 251 
Chambord, Chateau of, 237, 244, 

24s 
Charles, Emperor, 144, 145, 184, 

222, 228 
Charles, King, 33, 38, 40, 41, 42, 

44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, S3, 54. 55, 

58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 71, 72, 74, 

7^, 77 
Charles, Prince, 224, 226 
Charles VII., 223 
Charles XII., 213 
Chatham, Lord, 156 
Chefoo, 247 
Chetoo, 292 

Chevalier, the, 162, 163, 164, 226 
Chiari, 130 
Chittwa Ghur, 274 
Christian of Denmark, 62 
Claverhouse, Graham of, 33, 42, 55, 

S6 
Clermont, Colonel, 239 
Clive, 249 

Coblenz, 89, 137, 220 
Cohorn, in 
Coigny, Marshal, 225 



INDEX 



Colberg, 64 

Colchester, 44 

Cologne, 52 

Combermere, Lord, T2, 259, 260, 

293. 294 
Como, 19 

Company, the White, 11, 12, 13 
Conde, 49 

Condottieri, the, 1-17 
Coote, Sir Eyre, 249 
Corniche, 2 
Cornwallis, Lord, 290 
Cotignola, 14 

Council of Ten, the, 20, 22, 23 
Courland, Duchess of, 179 
Courtrai, 227, 228 
Covenant, the, 38 
Covenanters, the, 40, 42, 51, 56 
Crachnitz, 218 
Cremona, 131 
Crimea, the, 185 
Cromwell, 44, 45, 46, 50 
Cronstadt, 177, 178 
Cumberland, Duke of, 228, 232, 

'^li. 237, 240, 241 

Da Carrara, Lord of Padua, 15 

Dalecarlia, 196 

d'Alembert, 156 

Dalgetty, Dugald, iz< 35. n, 45, 

51, 60, 65, 72, 74. 82, 96, 98, 

263 
Dalziel, 33, 42, 48, 50, 52, 55, 56 
Dameine, 66, 68 
da Mortare, Braccio, 25, 26, 27 
Dantzic, 62, 182, 218 
Danube, the, 61, 89, 90, 103, no, 

III, 122, 125, 128, 145, 147, 189, 

213, 222, 225 
d'Asfeldt, 153, 221 
Daun, 202, 205, 206 
de Boigne, 249, 250, 251, 252, 272, 

279, 29s 
de Bouquoi, 89 
de Castellan, 63 
Deccan, the, 207, 247, 259 
de Conti, Princess, 172 
de Grassins, 230 
de Joinville, Seigneur, 157 
de la Colonic, M., 123 
de la Pergola, Angelo, 19 
de Leon, St. Pol, 165 



299 



Delhi. 246, 253, 254, 256, 257, 282, 

291, 295 
de Lobin, Countess, 212 
de Montreal, Walter, 5, 6, 7, 12, 14 
de Noailles, M., 221, 227, 229 
de Roquefeuille, Admiral, 226 
Derwentwater, Earl, 155 
d'Estes, 15 
Dettingen, 225, 227 
d'Harcourt, Duke, 227 
Dnieper, the, 183, 184, 186 
Doab, 252 
Doge, the, 18, 20 
Dolgoroukis, the, 178, 179, 181 
Donauworth, 90, 93 
Douro, the, 83, 87 
Dowlat Rao, 273 
Dresden, 200, 209, 210, 211, 214, 

218, 205 
Drogheda, 38 

Drummond, General, 48, 51 
Dudernaig, 276 
Dumaine, Captain, 66, 68 
Dumfries, 43 
Dunaverty, 42 
Dunbar, battle of, 47 
Dunblane, 160 
Dundee, 160 
Dunkirk, 226 
Dunklespiel, 96 
Dunnottar, 156 
Dupleix, 249 

Edinburgh, 38, 42, 53, 60 

Ecorcheurs, the, i, 2 

Eger, fortress of, 224 

Egra, 102 

Elbe, the, 1 1 1 

Elizabeth, Empress, 176, 194, 197 

Elsinore, 35 

Erfurt, 82 

Etlingen, 221 

Eugene of Savoy, 105-154 

Eu redoubt, 230, 231, 233 

Fairfax, 43, 47 

Ferdinand of Brunswick, 203, 205 

Fetteresso, 163 

Finland, 195, 196 

Finnish Cuirassiers, 36 

Flanders, 99, 107, 229 



300 



INDEX 



Florence, 3, 4, 10, 14, 17, 20, 21, 

23. 27, 29, 31 
Florence, Signoria of, 16 
Fleury, 220 
Fontenoy, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 

236, 239 
Forth, the, 38 
Franconia, 37, 82, 89 
Frankfort, 35, 69, 70, 74, 75, 76, 

78, 86 
Frederick of Prussia, 153, 198, 199, 

200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 

220, 224 
Freiburg, 143 

Friedland, Duke of, 90, 91, 97, loi 
Fronde, 49 

Galloway, 51 

Gallows Hill, 235 

Garioch, 98, 99 

Genoa, 18, 20, 28 

George, King, 243 

Ghent, 140, 237 

Gibraltar, 174 

Glasgow, 43, 47 

Glencairn, 52 

Gordon, General, 99, 100, 102, 164 

Gothenburg, 37 

Goumay, 1 1 

Grammont, Duke of, 225 

Grand Company, the, 7 

Grandson, 19 

Grant, Colonel, 203 

Grant, James, 100 

Grierson, 42, 55 

Guarinci, 4, 5 

Guienne, 1 1 

Gunter, Captain, 72 

Gustavus Adolphus, 58, i;9, 61, 62, 
66, 67, 68, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 87, 
88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 96, 98, 100 

Gwalior, 250, 275 

Hague, the, 52, 137, 140, 171 

Hainault, French, 229 

Halle, 61. 82 

Hamburg, j-j, 198 

Hamelin, 36 

Hamilton, Duke of, },}), 42, 44, 45, 

46, 47, 159 
Hamilton, Marquis of, ^^ 



Hamilton, Sir John, 83 

Hanan, Colonel, 85 

Hanse towns, the, 1 1 1 

Hansi, 264, 269, 293 

Hapsburgs, the, 109, 222 

Haradschin, 91 

Harte, 60 

Hastings, Warren, 249, 250 

Hatto, Bishop, 89 

Hawkwood, Sir John, 6, 12, 13, 

15. 17 
Hearsay, 268 

Hearsey, the records of, 296 
Heber, Bishop, 260 
Hebrides, Outer, 170 
Heilbronn, 134, 153 
Helsingfors, 196 
Henri Quatre, 71 
Hepburn, Brigadier-General, 82 
Hepburn, Life of, 100 
Hepburn, Sir John, 58-95 
Hesse-Homburg, Prince of, 184 
Hesse, Landgrave of, tj 
Hochkirch, 207 
Hochstadt, 134, 135 
Holkar of Indore, 246, 267, 273, 

279, 280, 283, 285, 288, 2S9, 292, 

295 
Holland, 47. 50, 53 
Hornby, 44 
Home, 65, 75 
Hound, the, 62 
Howard, 103 
Hull, 37, 44, 46 
Humber, the, 38 
Hume, 55 
Hungary, 118, 121, 129, 132, 133, 

143. 145 
Hungary, King of, 5 
Hungary, Queen of, 224, 228 
Huntly, 162, 164 
Hurjee, 274, 275 
Hyde, Sir Edward, 50, 52 
Hyderabad, 253, 270 
Hyderabad, Nizam of, 246 
Hyder Ali, Sultan of Mysore, 247 

Ingolstadt, 90, 91 
Ireland, Marshal of, 38 
Islam, prophet of, 254 
Italy, 2, 9, II, 12, 122, 123 
Ivan of Brunswick, 190 



INDEX 



301 



Jackson, 80 

James VII., 155, 166, 168 

Jane, Queen of Naples, 5 

Janissaries, the, 124, 127, 146 

Japan, 52 

Jeypore, 265 

Kahlenberg, 115 

Kaiser, the, loi, 102, 116 

Kaiserstadt, 104, 222 

Kara Mustapha, 114, 123 

Keith, Marshal, 155-208 

Keith, Earl Marshal, 155 

Keith, Field -Marshal, 198 

Keith, Lady, 155 

Khalsa, 264 

Khan, Ameer, 279, 286, 288, 291, 

292, 295 
Khandi, Appi Rao, 262, 263 
Kilwaring, 38 

Kimphausen, General, 64, 65, 69, 70 
Kinglake, 124 
Kintyre, 41, 42 
Kirkcaldy, 51 
Kolin, 203 

Konigsmark, Aurora von, 209 
Konigstein, 82, 200 

La Colonie, 151, 152 

Lacy, 182 

Ladislaus of Naples, 25 

Laffeldt, 241, 242, 243 

Lake, Lord, 249, 252, 281, 282, 283, 

284, 285, 289, 290 
Lally, 249 
Lambert, 44, 54 
Lanark, 44 
Landau, 142 
Lando, Count, 7, 9, 10 
Langdale, 44 
Languedoc, 1 1 
Lansberg, 75, 76 
Las Torres, Count de, 175 
Lauderdale, ^3, 56 
Lech, 90 

Leckinski, Stanislas, 182, 184 
le Couvreur, Adrienne, 216 
Lefort, 215, 216 
Leghorn, 18, 172 
Leipzic, 78, 79, S2, 90, 204 
Leith, 37, 38 
Leitmeritz, 204 



Leontow, General, 185 

Leopold, Elector of Bavaria, 97, 
109, no, 116, 117, 118, 122, 128, 
129, 133, 135, 142. 152, 219, 222. 
223, 228 

Leslie, Count of Balquhain, 96-104 
Captain of Bodyguard, 102 
Count of the Empire, 102 
Field-Marshal, 103 
Imperial Chamberlain, 102 
Knight of Order of the Golden 

Fleece, 103 
Master of Ordnance, 103 
Vice-President of the War- 
Council, 103 
Warden of Slavonic Marches, 
103 

Leslie, David, 41, 42, 43 

Leuthen, 206 

Le Vaisseau, 255, 258, 261 

Leven, 33, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 

Lewis, the, 170 

Liege, 216, 238, 239 

Ligonier, 233, 238, 239, 242, 243 

Lille, fall of, 140 

Lille, siege of, 1 39 

Lillynichol, the, 62 

Lion of the North, the, 96, 100 

Liria, Duke of, 168, 175, 178 

Liswari, 249, 252 

Lithuania, 183 

Livonia, 211 

Lobositz, 201, 202 

Lockhart, Colonel, 45 

Lombardy, 8, 19, 20 

London, 48, 59, 226 

Lorenzberg, 203, 204 

Lorraine, Charles of, 202, 205, 206, 

227, 238 

Lorraine, Duke of, 82, 84, 114, 115, 
116, 117, 118 

Louis, King of Baden, 107, 108, 
109, no. III, 113, 116, 121, 136 
143, 159, 210, 211, 212, 225, 226, 

228, 231, 232, 235, 236, 238, 243. 
244 

Louis of Tarento, 5 
Lowendahl, 235, 236, 240, 243 
Lowendal, 187 
Lucca, 14 
Lucknow, 250, 251 
Ludowitz, 202 



302 INDEX 

Lukwa Dada, 272, 273, 274 
Lumsdale, Sir James, 35, 73 
Liitzen, 35, 67, 94, 100 
Lynedoch, Lord, 131 



Macaulay, 55 

McDonald, Alaster, 41 

McDonald, Sir Donald, 161 

Madras, 250, 253 

Madrid, 156, 166, 167, 168, 169, 173, 

17s 
Maestricht, 238, 241, 242, 243, 244 
Magdeburg, 74, 76, 78 
"Magdeburg quarter," 83 
Magyars, the, 114, 116 
Maigrigna, 1 1 1 
Maillebois, Marshal, 224, 225 
Main, the, 61, 85 
Maintenon, Madame de, 144 
Malatesta, 3, 6, 28 
Malcolm, Sir John, 292 
Malplaquet, battle of, 141, 211 
Manstein, 181, 184, 190, 192, 193, 

195. 197 
Mar, Duke of, 158, 162, 163, 170 
Mar, Earl of, 155 
Marchfeld, the, 115 
Maria Theresa, 223, 238 
Marienburg, 82 
Marlborough, 90, no, 131, 132, 

133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 

140, 141, 142, 211, 227 
Marseilles, 12, 167, 172 
Marston, 39 
Martin V., Pope, 25 
Matthews, Admiral, 222 
Maubeuge, 229 
Maurice, Count de Saxe, 209 
Mausethurm, 89 
Mayence, 86, 87, 89, 1 19 
Mazarin, Cardinal, 106 
Mazarin, Duke of, 107 
Medici, Cosmo de, 31 
Medzibeg, 183 

Meer Cossim, Nawab of Bengal, 254 
Menschikoff, Prince, 177, 179, 217, 

218 
Menteith, 51 
Merthens, Eva, 208 
Meuse, the, 132, 239, 243 
Middleton, 33, 43, 44, 49, 51, 52, 

53. 54. 55 



Milan, 8, 13, 15, 18, 22, 27, 29, 30, 

31. 32 
Milan, Gian Galeazzo, Duke of, 17, 

20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29 
Mincio, the, in, 130, 131 
Mitchell, 97 

Mittau, 179, 180, 215, 216, 218 
Mohacs, 116, 123 
Moira, Lord, 291 
Moldau, 82 
Monk, 51, 54 
Mons, III, 140, 229 
MontecucuUi, 65, 66, 70 
Montrose, 33, 40, 41, 47, 51, 160 
Montserrat, 28 
Montserrat, Marquis of, 1 1 
Monza, 17 
Morea, 145 
Morgarten, 19 
Moscow, 181, 182 
Moselle, the, no, 137, 139 
Mundy, Captain, 256, 260, 294 
Munich, 91, 98 
Munich, Field-Marshal, 180, 181, 

182, 184, 185, 187, 188, 190, 194, 

198 
Munro, David, 66 
Munro, Colonel Robert, 58-95 

Nagpore, Rajah of, 246 
Namur, in, 112, 238 
Naples, 6, 8, 15, 16, 103 
Naples, King of, 3 
Naples, Ladislaus of, 25 
Naples, Queen of, 20, 25 
Napoleon, 97, no, 114, 138, 154 
Natzer, 138 
Neckar, the, 134 
Nehern, General, 125 
Nepaul, 291 
Nerbudda, 291 
Newburgh, 52 
Newcastle, 39, 160 
Newcastle, Duke of, 158 
Newry, 38, 39 
Nizam, 273 
Nordlingen, 94, 103 
Norris, Sir John, 226 
Nuremberg, 35, 85, 92, 100 

Obi, the, 178 

Ochsenfurt, 84, 85 , 



INDEX 



303 



Ochterlony, 292 
Ockzakow, 186, 188 
Olmutz, 206 
Oodeypore, 274 
Orange, Prince of, 54, 141 
Orange-Nassau, William of, 240 
Ottoman advance, 114 
Oude, Nawab of, 254 
Oudenarde, 138, 237 
Overton, Colonel, 46 
Oxenstiem, 62, tj 
Oxford, 48 

Palamos, 167 

Palestrina, 7 

Palflfy, Count, 145, 146 

Pandolfo Malatesta of Brescia and 

Bergamo, 19 
Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, 10 
Panmure, Earl of, 159, 162 
Pappenheim, 79, 92, 96, 98 
Paris, 49, 52, 107, 166, 167, 170, 

214, 215, 237, 238 
Passaro, Cape, 174 
Patna, 254 
Pavia, 97 

Peishwah, 246, 273, 280 
Percy, Lord, 250 
Perron, 251, 252, 266, 267, 269, 

272, 273, 275, 279, 280, 281, 

295 
Persia, 185 
Perugia, 5, 8 
Pescara, 26 

Peterhead, 156, 162, 163, 171 
Peter the Great, 178, 179, 180, 182, 

184, 211, 216 
Peterwardein, 125, 145 
Philip of Spain, 221 
Philippo Maria, 19, 28 
Phillipin, 'J2 
Philippsburg, 153, 221 
Piacenza, 30 
Piccino, 29 

Piedmont, 2, 120, 121, 125 
Pilau, 62 
Pisa, 14 

Plasencia, Arcelli of, 18 
Po, the, 23, 30 
Podesta, 4 
Poland, 189 
Poland, King of, 53 



Polish Diet, the, 215, 217, 218 

Pomerania, 73, yj, 97, 211, 212 

Pomerania, Duke of, 63 

Poona, 246 

Pope, the (Eugenius), 10, 14, 15, 20, 

29, 30, 146 
Port Arthur, 73 
Portmore, Earl of, 158 
Portree, 165 
Potocky, Count, 189 
Potsdam, 157, 198 
Prague, 82, 203, 223, 224 
Preobrajenski, 194 
Presburg, 114, 132 
Provence, 2, 6, 11 
Punjaub, 252, 269, 289 

QUEDLINBURG, 2 ID 

Raab, the, 114 

Rabutin, Count, 125 

Rajpoots, 275 

Rajpoot Rajah of Ooucara, 278, 

279, 280, 285 
Ramsay, Sir James, 83, 88 
Rastadt, 143 
Ravenna, 8 

Rebellion, 1641, the, 38 
Redgauntlet, Sir Robert, 55 
Reinhardt, Walter, 254 
Repuin, Prince, 198 
Rheingau, 89 
Rhine, the, 61, 86, 87, in, 122, 

123, 132, 134, 142, 153, 186, 234, 

238 
Richard II., 17 
Richelieu, loi 
Rienzi, 7, 14 

Riesengebirge, 100 ; ij 

Riga, 211,217 
Rimedo, 129 
Rimini, 6 

Rohilcund, 254, 285, 288 
Romagna, 5, 6, 13 
Rome, 7, 8, 103 
Rossbach, 205, 206 
Rostock, TJ 
Rothes, 33, 38 
Rouen, 50, 170 
Rulfi, Polyxena, 25 
Rugen, 62 
Rugenwald, 63, 70 



304 INDEX 



Runjeet Singh, 289, 293 

Ruthven, 165 

Ruthven, Sir Patrick, 62 

St. Germains, 49, 166 

St. Peter, Patrimony of, 5 

St. Petersburg, 175, 177, 182, 189, 

191, 194, 198, 216, 222, 225 
Samaria, 85 

Samzoo, Begum, 253, 255, 256, 257 
San Sebastian, 14, 72, 169 
Sardhana, 254, 255, 257, 258, 259 
Save, the, 125, 145, 147, 148 
Savoy, Eugene of, 105-154 
Saxe, Marshal, 209-245 
Saxe-Lauenburg, Duke of, 90 
Saxe- Weimar, Bernard of, tj, 89, 94 
Saxony, Elector of, 61, 78, 182, 184 
Schartorinski, 183 
Schelbeane, 64, 66 
Scheldt, the, 230, 233 
Schellenberg, 90, no 
Schiller, 58, 61, 93, no 
Schomberg, 70 
Schwerin, 199, 202, 208 
Scindiah of Gwalior, 246, 250, 251, 

252, 253, 257, 259, 262, 263, 266, 

272, 273, 274, 277, 279, 280, 281, 

283, 295 
Scott, 33, 41, 51, 55, 62, 93 
Seaforth, 162, 171 
Sedan, 171 
Sedlitz, 205 
Sforza, Attendolo, 24, 25, 26, 28, 

30. 32 

Sforza, Francesco, 13, 24, 25, 26 

Siberia, 190 

Sible Hedingham, 17 

Sienna, 5 

Sigismund, Emperor, 20 

Silesia, 205, 224 

Sismondi, 5, 31 

Sivagie's " rats," 246 

Shahofski, Prince, 183, 184 

Sharpe, 56 

Shere Alum, Emperor, 255 

Sheriffmuir, 159, 160 

Skinner, Captain, 258, 268, 269, 
270, 271, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 
281, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 289, 
290, 291, 292; his sobriquet, 
" Secunder Sahib," 295 



Skinner, the younger, 287, 288 

Sofia, 123 

Sombre, 254, 255, 259, 261 

Somerset, Duke of, 155 

Soubise, 204, 205, 207 

Spahis, 126 

Spain, 53, 121 

Spain, Cardinal Infant of, 103 

Spain, French Queen of, 107 

Spain, Infanta of, 174 

Spanish Succession, War of the, 

129 
Stahrenberg, Guido, 127 
Stair, Earl of, 159 
Stamboul, 103 
Stockholm, 191, 196 
Strasburg, 143, 245 
Strathmore, Earl of, 162 
Stuttgard, 136, 143 
Sutherland, Colonel, 272, 273, 275, 

295 
Sutlej, 266, 289, 290 
Sweden, 59 

Sweden, King of, 35, 166 
Switzerland, 21 
Sylvia, Don Phillipe de, 86, 87 

Tallard, 134 

Tard-venus, 2 

Tarento, 8 

Tarquin, 4 

Taylor, Meadows, 247, 295 

Teufel, Colonel, 71 

Texel, 171 

Theiss, the, 125, 126, 127 

Thirty Years' War, the, 58, 62, 94, 

105, no 
Thomas, George, 252, 253, 256, 

257, 261, 262, 263, 266, 267, 268, 

269, 270, 274 
Thug, 247 
Thuringenwald, 82 
Thuringia, 204 
Tilly, 70, 71, 74, 75, 78, 79, 82, 

86, 89, 90, 96 
Titel, 125 
Tondeurs, 2 
Tongres, 241 
Torallo, 20 
Tortensohn, 75 
Toulon, 222 
Toulouse, 172 



INDEX 



305 



Tournai, iii, 140, 141, 229, 230, 

231. 237 
Tours, 123 
Tours, Mr., 49 
Transylvania, 118 
Trefenbach, 70 
Tullibardine, 171 
Turin, 118, 136 
Turkey, 185 
Turkey, Sultan of, 104 
Turner, Sir James, 33-57 
Tuscany, 28 
Tyne, 38, 39 

Ugie, 157 

Ukraine, the, 186, 189, 190 

Ulster, 38 

Urban VI., 15 

Usmaiz, 218 

Utrecht, Peace of, 143 

Utrecht, 142 

Valence, 121 

Valliere, Louise de la, 106 

Vauban, 1 11, 229 

Vend6me, 131, 132, 136, 137, 138 

Venice, 8, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29, 

30, 31. 145 
Versailles, 109, 113, 121, 131, 134, 

223, 224, 240 
Vicenza, 129 
Victor Amadeus of Saxony, 117, 

118, 120, 130 

Vienna, 8, 98, 108, 114, 115, 116, 

119, 122, 123, 130, 132, 133. 143. 
152, 154, 199, 200, 223 

Villars, Marshal, 113, 140, 141, 142, 
143, 144, 146 



Villeroi, 130, 131, 136 
Villiers, 153 
Vilvorde, 238 
Visconti, 29, 31, 32 
Visconti, Bernabo, of Milan, 14, 15' 
Vittoria, 74, 234 
Vivard, General, 153 
Vizier, the Grand, 128, 145, 146, 
149. 152 

Wade, Marshal, 227, 228 
Waldeck, Prince of, 228, 237, 238 
Walker, Patrick, 55 
Wallenstein, 6, 35, 59, 61, 86, 92. 



99, 100, loi, 102, 



252, 266, 269, 



96, 97. 

224 
Wandewash, 249 
Warsaw, 183, 217 
Weissenberg, 203 
Wellesley, Lord, 

290 

Wellington, 83, 87, 234 
Werben, 78 
Werner (Guarinci), 4 
Wigan, 45 

Wilmanstrand, 192, 193, 208 
Wodrow, 55 
Wolgast, 62 
Worcester, 48 
Wrangel, 192, 193 
Wiirtemberg, 146 
Wiirtzburg, 82, 84, 100 
Wiirtzburg, Bishop of, 92 
Wybourg, 191 

Zenta, III, 125, 126, 128 
Ziskaberg, 202, 204 



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